Good luck with the tens machine.  I had one of those too.  It kind of feels good but didn't really help with the pain.  I had zillions of injections.  The only thing that helped was the microwave thing.  It was much more involved than the steroid injections. 

I am a veteran of OA of the knee!  I am no longer young, but I had pain and degeneration bad enough to qualify me for total knee replacement when I was young and took meds and had lubricating injections then.  Finally, I had my right knee replaced two years ago.  I weighed 315 lbs. at the time.  My left knee is bone on bone and the plan was to have it replaced after I recovered from the right one.  However, I had wls in October and have already lost 74 lbs.  Guess what!  My left knee is at least 75% better!  I have decided to delay the replacement to see how I do after the weight loss.

By the way, consider DS surgery.  You can still take arthritis meds with it and you can't with the RNY.

Hi Cherie,

I am just starting on this wls journey.  I won't even have medicare coverage until May 1st, so I can't go to any appointments yet.  From what I have read here so far, I have a long wait ahead of me with the qualifying and aproval process.  I am so sorry to hear about how much trouble you are having with getting approved.  I hope the appeals specialist will make a difference, so that you can get the help that you need.

I resisted the walker for a long time, and I rarely use it in my small apartment opting for my cane instead, but it is invaluable on the rare occasion that I leave the apartment, because with both hips being a problem, I wobble a lot and lose balance.  The best thing I ever did was get the lift chair/recliner.  Just go to a retailer and try one out.  The incredible strain and intense pain that I felt when trying to get up from a seated position, was adding additional limits to how well I could get around.  It seemed that I was causing more injury to my hips or causing muscle strains without it and that has gotten much better since buying the chair.

I am a blogger, so if you want to keep track of what I am doing to get wls and make suggestions if you have some for me, go to Beverly's Journey or check out my yarn obsession on Beverly's Yarn Crazy.

I look forward to getting to know you better and if you need to vent to someone or just discuss things, I am here.  If you want my phone number just send me a private message.

Take care,
Beverly

Hi Beverly,
I'm sorry to hear about your pain in both your hips.  I can imagine how very painful that is.  I know with just my one, it is awful.  It is my left hip but my right knee also hurts, so I'm wondering if that could be from putting too much weight on that leg due to the other one hurting.  I use a can to walk with but believe me - there are times that I think a walker would be better. 
I am also going to see about getting a lift chair.  I go to see a specialist this Friday and will bring it up to him.  I'm just hoping and praying that he will offer me some options.  He may not even want to do the surgery yet, and prefer to wait until I have my revision weight loss surgery.  Do you know how long you are going to have to wait to have your wls?  I have been denied twice already and have hired an appeals specialist.  She is taking care of it now and I have more hope. 
I hope you're doing good and would like to talk with you more, so if you'd care to, leave me a message here or you can send one to me directly.  I'm sure we have a lot in common with these problems and maybe we can provide a little support for each other.  Take care.

I need both hips replaced and I have never found a drug that will help much with the pain of osteoarthritis.  I really dislike the commercials on tv for aleve and other such drugs that show people dancing the night away after taking their product.  Never works that way for me.  I use a walker to just get around our apartment and I spend most of my time, even sleeping, in a lift chair to assist me in getting up.  I take etodolac as an anti-inflamatory, not that it really does much.

Unfortunately, I do have to wait for wls and hopefully a huge weight loss, before I can have my hip replacements as no one will approve me for the hip replacement surgery at my current weight. 

I wish you good luck in your journey!

Beverly