my right knee

About 5 weeks ago I was sleeping in the middle of the night and became aware, subconsciously, that my right knee hurt...sure enough, when I woke up my right knee was swollen and painful. Pain and swelling in my knees is not abnormal for me so for the first week I tried all of the home remedies that I know to get my knee back to normal. The pain was getting worse and so I decided it was time to stop self diagnosing and broke down and went to see the doctor. I told the doctor that I have IT Band issues and I thought that was what the problem was but I couldn't get the knee back to normal. The doctor examined the knee, prescribed an anti-inflammatory, gave me a list of stretches and exercises, instructions to ice twice a day and told me to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later the knee was bigger and more painful, I couldn't straighten my leg all the way nor bend it very far. On my return trip to the doctor's office I saw a different doctor and his diagnosis was a meniscus tear, he tried using the ultra sound machine in the office to look at the meniscus but that didn't work very well so he ordered an MRI. I had the MRI last Friday morning and went back to the doctor this morning to get the results.

Triple whammy on the findings, I have a lateral meniscus tear due to degeneration, arthritis and some cartilage issues behind the patella. No wonder my knee hurts. The most depressing part of the findings is the degeneration...looks like I inherited the bad knees from my mom's side of the family. I'm going to see the Orthopedic Surgeon on Monday afternoon to find out what's next in the process. The doctor today said I should expect arthroscopic surgery.

I'm so tired of hobbling around, my leg hurts all the time but I really dislike the aching at night when I'm trying to sleep. I had this same knee scoped 26 1/2 years ago to have "fatty tissues" removed that were floating around in my knee causing the joint to give out at random times.