KNEE ARTHRITIS - General principles of managing Osteoarthritis of the knee :

Pulsed Signal Therapy (PST) - - Posted by sportspain (sportspain), 13 September 2004

Anybody tried this type of therapy?

http://www.certifiedpst.com/sports.html
Posted by hmaxwell (Heather M.), 13 September 2004

Sorry to say that it sounds like hooey to me.  And I'm a big believer in so-called alternative therapies--acupuncture, deep tissue work, bio-feedback, etc.  But anything that claims to grow cartilage back is something that I just have to dismiss...nothing grows back cartilage.  If there were something that did this, the inventor would be RICH.  That's because one out of every three Americans suffers joint pain due to arthritis.  So you can bet that machine would be in use everywhere around the country and around the world.

What exactly is the problem that you are dealing with?  Likely there are more accepted therapies that can make your problem go away--or at least be more liveable.

Heather
Posted by sportspain (sportspain), 13 September 2004

I had a partial meniscus removal on my left knee when I was injured at age 13 playing rugby. Now I'm 28 ... but untill a couple of years ago I was still playing sports normally... that included high impact sports like running and basketball. I had to stop 2 years ago when my knee started getting swollen after high impact sports.

My doctor's have told me to stop all high impact activity and I'm doing a yearly check to verify progression on the problem. Apart from that nothing else has been done.

I still practice swimming, yoga and weight lifting (light weights for the legs).

Since I'm very young I want to slow down the progress as I have a long time left to live!
Posted by cjd72 (cjd72), 18 December 2004

Sportspain,

I've never heard of PST, and I'll join Heather on a strong willingness to use accupuncture, massage, and the like...most of it boils down to doing some research.

I was just diagnosed with severe arthritis (don't know what type yet, going in for the tests next week, most likely OA) in both knees a couple days ago, so I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, and I'm dumbfounded on how many snake oil dealers their are out there...

One thing I did try to smooth things up a bit was Chondroitin Glucosamine(If you aren't on it already)... I started taking it a year or so after I fell 24 feet from a building I was working on back in 1997. Landed on my knees(ouch!), broke my right femur(BIG OUCH!) It's obviously not a cure-all, but I did notice a moderate improvement in ease of motion, and a little less pain. I take about 1500 mg a day.

Chris

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