Osteoarthritis and Synvisc

Two months ago I got diagnosed with Osteoarthritis in my right knee. Needless to say, this has really been impacting with my climbing for a while and Physical therapy hasn't been successful in building up strength in the joint.

They did a Synvisc injection today. Has anyone else had this done?

The plan is this will relieve the pain and allow me to strength train the joint and get it healthy and stop the bone on bone wear naturally without needing any more injection therapy, or worse, a partial knee replacement.

Hi John:
I am curious what your experience has been, now a few months after the injection. The same injection has been recommended to a friend of mine, but I am very skeptical...
Thanks and I hope your knee is better!

Eric and Lucie wrote:Hi John: I am curious what your experience has been, now a few months after the injection. The same injection has been recommended to a friend of mine, but I am very skeptical... Thanks and I hope your knee is better!

Me too!

I have had it twice, six month intervals. It helped a great deal, but the second time it seems to be wearing off a bit quicker. I tend to climb "right legged"
and I think this causes a lot of extra stress.

This was after having a major knee job in 2007-an "autologous chondrocyte implant" where they patch the hard articular cartiledge of the knee (art. cart. is almost like a hard plastic that lets your bones glide together) with cells that they harvest from another area of your knee and grow in a culture.

At any rate, I think you'll getbsome relief for sure.

Eric and Lucie wrote:Hi John: I am curious what your experience has been, now a few months after the injection. The same injection has been recommended to a friend of mine, but I am very skeptical... Thanks and I hope your knee is better!

I just noticed this....

I took pretty well with Synvisc. I get three shots, a week apart, every six months. I go from hardly being able to hobble up stairs to trail running the next day after the first shot.

It hasn't taken away all the pain, but I would say 90% of it. My knee still gets stiff on me after I sit down for a while after exertion. And going down super steep stuff isn't too kind of it.

As far as climbing goes, it's great. It only bothers me on the lower grades where I tend to do more high stepping.

November I got my third round of the stuff, it doesn't seem to be as good as the first two injections, but I am still running and climbing just fine, I just have a little more pain than normal. Of course, I was a couch potato slug for for three months and just getting back to being active again.