You may have noticed that, apart from ThrowBack Thursdays, I have barely been posting anything for quite some time. I have come up with many excuses for not keeping up with this blog (and many other things in my life), but it ultimately comes down to two things:

1. Depression/Anxiety, and
2. New Pain, which spawned More New Pain.

Item # 1 was briefly described here. So, let’s talk about Item #2.

On the evening of December 9, 2024, I was walking from one room to another within my house, when I suddenly felt like I’d pulled a muscle in my lower left back. This pain was completely unexpected and uncalled for. I wasn’t carrying anything, I didn’t slip / trip, there were no stairs involved. It was just “WHAM! Here’s some pain for ya.” I tried applying actual heat as well as virtual heat (Icy-Hot). This did not help.

On December 10, I looked up “hernia symptoms” on the web. I quickly recognized that I did NOT have a hernia. Yay! That afternoon, I went to Rock Steady Boxing class, which has thwarted occasional mystery pain in the past. This time it provided some help, but only briefly.

Over the next couple of days, the pain “migrated” from my lower left back to my left groin muscle. The nature of the pain seemed to change as well. It went from feeling like I’d pulled a muscle to feeling more like a cramp or a general tightness. On December 12, I went for a drive. Sitting upright in the driver’s seat was very uncomfortable. So much so, that I began to wonder whether I’d ever be able to travel again.

The pain “migrated” again over the next couple of days. This time it moved from muscle tissue to the neighboring joints and/or tendons. It basically felt like someone was pulling on my leg, trying to dislocate my left hip and left knee. On December 16, I had a regularly scheduled appointment with my Parkinson’s team. I told them of these new pains; they recommended a massage and a visit to my General Practitioner (GP).

A day or two later, I had a professional massage, targeting the problem areas. This did me no good. On December 20^th, I went to see a GP. (Not my GP; he retired recently and I haven’t established myself with another one yet.) This GP felt my knees and said it felt like I have amazingly little cartilage left. He referred me to another facility to get some X-rays taken, but before I left, he injected my left knee with court-and-zone. I think that’s what it was called. Or maybe I’ve been watching too much college basketball. In any case, the knee very quickly felt much better, and even my hip was a little better. I actually felt well enough to do some good walking with my dog for the first time in a couple weeks.

Then came two days of a very tight-feeling pain in the front of my left thigh. A friend who has a lot of experience with knee problems told me this is a common occurrence with court-and-zone injections.

Finally, over the course of Christmas Day, the pain reduced to an acceptable level. By December 28, the pain was completely gone: muscles, joints, and everything else felt fine. But that wouldn’t last. Around January 8, 2025 a whole new variety of knee pain began. This truly sounded like what the GP had described – like bone grinding on bone. At this point, I still hadn’t heard anything back regarding the X-rays, so I scheduled a free consultation w/ ArthritisKneePain.com.

Eventually, about a month after I had the X-rays taken, I finally signed up for an account on Novant Health’s web site so I could see the results (since apparently they weren’t ever going to call or email me). Good news! They didn’t find any bone spurs or other abnormalities…just a serious lack of cartilage in my knee. I have now had the first four of a series of five recommended injections of a gel that is supposed to temporarily replace the missing cartilage in the knee. My knees and hips are doing quite well, but they were doing quite well before the sudden, unexplained back pain that started all this. So, I’m not sure what to think, and I am reluctant to book future travel. That said, I’ve started mapping out a road trip to Kentucky for (hopefully) some time this spring.