For readers who need them, here, from the New York Times, are two reasons you don't want to have hips or knees replaced: 1. It's expensive. The cost of a new hip or knee is
$30,000 to $40,000, and while insurance covers most of that, your out-of-pocket costs may be
$3,000 to $4,000. 2. It hurts.
In this piece in the Times, Dr. David Felson, a rheumatologist and arthritis prevention specialist
at Boston University School of Medicine, offers five tips to saving the hips and knees you were born with.
1.CONTROL YOUR WEIGHT The more you
weigh, the more pressure on your joints, which can lead to joint damage.
2.GO LOW-IMPACT Although there is no definitive link between osteoarthritis of the knee and running (or any other
sport), sports medicine doctors discourage their patients from running
on hard pavement, playing tennis on concrete or activities like skiing
over lots of moguls.
3.AVOID INJURY Major injuries, typically the type that require surgery,
greatly increase your risk for osteoarthritis.
4.GET FIT The better toned your muscles
are, the less likely you are to injure yourself .
5.BE SKEPTICAL Don’t waste your money on specialized
nutrients. Shark cartilage, glucosamine and chondroitin  popular
supplements marketed for healthy joints  can be expensive and are of limited benefit.
Read more in the New York Times.
While many articles here are insightful or to the point, this is one of the weaker offerings from NYT. This is a re-hash of rather common knowledge without the specifics to be of benefit. It lacks any positive or useful advice.
How including about these already known tidbits?
1. Control your weight: easy to say, for most discouraging to hear yet again. As a positive suggestion, diets with smaller amounts of red meat (or none) reduce inflammation in the body. This and higher intake of fresh vegetables is good start for the overweight.
2. Go Low-impact: swimming, cycling are two good low impact activities. Heel-strike running is high impact and linked with injury; landing on the mid-forefoot is minimal impact and many life-long runners employ this.
3. Avoid injury: aside from rewinding the clock, the best to do is to avoid body contact sports, or high risk activities such as motorcycling.
4. General fitness is of value, but studies have shown that Quadriceps weakness is linked with OA of the knees. Hip and knee strength activities targeting the outer hip muscles (abductors) and the quadriceps should be part of any regime.
5. Chondroitin/glucosamine while yet unproven is nowhere as expensive as surgery! Risk/benefit is a good approach to look at new, unknown supplements or unproven treatments.
Excellent! I’m with you Tom!
Certainly weight control will reduce the stress on joints and is important for fitness and health.
One should exercise for weight control and to tone muscles. Diet alone will not do it, one may look trim and fit, but without exercise it is an illusion. Often the type of exercise we do is determined by our body type, or abilities and what will put a smile on our face. If we don’t enjoy exercising it is unlikely we will stay with it.
I mention this because you have warned us away from high impact sports such as running, tennis and mogul skiing. Certainly bicycles or swimming put less impact on our joints, but often this is not going to be our first choice for a multitude of reasons.
As a long time runner, I find I can do it mornings without a lot of expense and hassle. The roads are always there. Running is really not a high impact sport, unless one runs down hills quickly. A light weight runner who avoids taking long strides with the resulting heal strike will experience much less impact. And so it is with many sports performed for fitness. There are ways to get the appropriate exercise without undue stress on ones joints, but I doubt if there are ways one can avoid exercise and remain fit.
be careful when you powerlift and bodybuild using extremely heavy weights necessary to induce hyper growth…of course that makes one much heavier than what might be recommended…
soccer, rugby and dancing ballet or modern might be something to avoid…
karate, as in full contact and kick boxing might be problematic…
all other contact sports might be avoided…
so one can choose to do nothing or very little and have good knees and hips and a lot of regrets at what one might have done and the level one might have attained…
or one can have the memories and first hand experience of having been on a national level in some sports and on an international level in others…
i’m happy with my memories and i’m ok with upcoming knee replacements… i could not live with having been a “wanna be but never was”.
thanks
i had double knee replacement 6 mo. ago. bet thing i ever did. i aways excerised, pretty successful at keeping my weight normal, did not run on hard surfaces, but still had progressing knee arthritis.at 67 i made this decision and now walk without a cane and no more pain. wow.
good for you, jeannie! at 57, after a lifetime of heavy weights and contact sports, i am looking at having both knees replaced so that i can continue aikido. my knees have hurt for so many years i can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and not have them ache…i, too, have a degenerative condition that is effecting my joints. congratulations and thanks!
you’re welcome william, at first you are going to have a lot of pain and rehab will hurt like crazy, but just when you think it will never be over, it suddenly gets better and better. i am so glad i had both done at the same time. your brain does not know the difference between one knee pain and two. good luck, jeannie
If faced with pain do not except a second opinion from a doctor in the same group…I had hip replacement after seeing two doctors from the same group….Pathology report showed no arthritis. New doctor diagnosed my problem as Piriformis syndrome. Now faced with limited options due to blood clots caused from the hip surgery…..a 72 year old male who hates doctors.
I love the way it’s presented although the contents are vague..
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Viva-Magazine-Your-Premium-Womens-Natural-Health-Magazine/262734921452?ref=ts
A hip injury compensation claim can arise from a variety of reasons. You could injure your hip in a road traffic accident, slip and fall on an uneven road surface or be the victim of a negligent product – such as in the recent DePuy Orthopaedics hip replacement system recall. In all of these cases, where it can be proven that somebody with a duty of care had acted negligently, you are entitled to make a hip injury compensation claim..