osteoarthritis

Hi Nidge,

I had arthritis long before I was diagnosed with PCa.

One day I might struggle to walk down a flight of stairs, but on a good day I can walk 10 miles, there is no ryhme nor reason to it.

I have had two treatments suggested by different doctors over the years and they both work to a limited extent.

The first is to go to the chemists and buy a pack of the biggest strength ibruprophen you can get, you have to ask and get them from under the counter, I believe they are 200's or maybe 500's.  You take 2 of these per day for a week, and then stop, repeating every couple of months, but no more than half dozen times a year.  The important thing is to take them for a whole week, to get rid of inflamation in the joints.

More recently a docor has suggested 2 x paracetamol every evening, and that works well, ensuring a good nights sleep.

The big question, of course, once we have PCa, is how to tell the difference between arthritis and bone mets?  On one occassion my GP sent me for an X-ray, saying that she wouldn't normally bother, but with my history, she wanted to be sure.  So presumablly they can tell the difference between arthritis and PCa mets by looking at X rays?

The other thing is to be aware that the standard 'joint care' tablets sold in chemists have a mixture of glucosamine and condritine, one of them and I am not sure which, has been linked with a higher risk of PCa.

:)

Dave 

Hi Bladerunner

I'm guessing with your pedigree in running you've covered the basics. However, sometimes the over-riding concern about cancer can get in the way of looking at some basic biomechanical analysis.

Of course the anxiety about bony mets needs to be addressed via your GP, but what else can you do in the meantime?

Others have suggested anti- inflammatories.

You mention 'arthritis; in your knee- that means different things to different people. I'm guessing you mean osteoarthritis (OA)   ( i.e chronic (long term) wear and tear arthritis). This is distinct from rheumatoid arthritis  ( the individual's own immune system creating inflammation at  joints). You could also mean a traumatic arthritis- essentially you have overloaded a previously asymptomatic joint and inflamed it so it hurts. Do it repeatedly and the changes become chronic i.e. OA. There again, you might also just mean that your knee hurts - for all sorts of reasons.

I would be wondering  if the opposite lower limb's hip pain ( which presumably predates your knee pain)  has led to you becoming at all unbalanced in the way you line up or load the right knee. Also , have you changed any training loading recently? You probably already know this sort of stuff,  but I would always check the basics before the spectre of malignancies clouds logical thinking. When I say that, I do not mean ignore any well founded concerns , particularly as you report the L hip hotspot exists. I'd guess you have asked about  running on that, no doubt aware that  increased loading on a hip bone with metastases can induce a pathological fracture? Are you trying to offload the hip and in doing so load the other knee?

Online advice can  never trump a detailed assessment. 

Can you self- refer to an NHS physio' in the meantime? Might turn out to be an irrelevance, you can always cancel if it is.

Hi walnut
Pain in left hip is where my largest cancer node is, the right knee has suffered with OA for years but last few weeks has got worse pain wise
My training runs are miles less then i ever ran see GP next monday
Did wonder if my HT injection has any relevance due next one on monday
Will make a note