[gatotom]

I assume you have good health insurance, a good knee cleanout sounds like a good first step. Ask you Doc about synvisc or supartz, its a series of hyaluronic acid injections that thickens the fluid between your cartilage, trust me on this one, if this stuff works for your knee, annual injections will make your knee feel new again.

As far as knee replacements, imho, knee replacements in the future will be just injections to stimulate growth cells, they are already doing it, just isn't covered by insurance yet, have too many titanium knees to use up first.

As far as myself, I am one of those stupid Chiropractors that stayed at a Holiday inn express but most importantly have snow skied over 5000 days. To say the least my knees are shot, 4 surgeries later I still have my original knees, not much left in there but I now take Hyaluronic acid capsules and still function pretty good, can still ride my bike hard, backpack into the mountains, thou going downhill is a killer.

I would try the synvisc injections.