Before considering surgery, we must exhaust nonoperative treatment measures.

These can be broken down to three main sections (activity modification, pain medication and health improvement).

Activity Modification

• Avoid intense weightbearing pounding exercises.
• Avoid flexing your knee past 90 degrees
• Focus on low-impact exercises such as swimming, stationary bike with seat raised as high as possible, cycling, elliptical trainer.
• For anterior knee pain and patellofemoral joint symptoms, avoid squatting, kneeling, lunging, frequent stair climbing, and heavy lifting.
• Work on flexibility and stretch to lessen joint pressure.

Pain Medication

• Tylenol is first line treatment.
• Prolonged NSAIDs will need to be managed by your PCP.
• Occasional intraarticular cortisone or visco-supplementation can relieve reactive synovitis flare up episodes.

Helpful Health Improvement Books

• Prevent And Reverse Heart Disease, by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
• Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease, by Dr. Dean Ornish
• The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Helpful Health Improvement Movies

Documentaries are available through Netflix or Amazon Prime.