Orthotic footwear to relieve knee pain

In early 2008, after suffering from crunchy knees for a while, I was diagnosed with PatelloFemoral Arthritis. Both my knee caps do not stay in place when I bend and flex my legs, so it is worn out. It makes a crunchy noise, and it's painful. My doctor prescribed 6 weeks of physical therapy, which actually extended to 3 months before we finally decided on surgery. I had an arthroscopy with bilateral release on my worst knee (the right). But after 6 weeks of physical therapy after, I still couldn't extend my knee very much without extreme pain. Finally, my doctor referred me to a sports therapy orthopedist, who gave me a simple remedy - a steroid shot on the knee. The shot blocked the pain and I resumed physical therapy. It was successful.

I knew I had to have the same surgery on my left knee, but with life changes and moves across the country, it had to wait. Meanwhile, it was the same as before, I felt constant pain with going up and down the stairs and any squatting motions. The degree of pain differed, but it was always there. After my fourth child, the plan was to wait until he was at least a year old before I think about the surgery. But then again, the pain was miserable. Waiting that long means I was going to endure pain.

My house has 2 floors and a tall stairs (without any landing midway). I had to plan out my days so that I didn't have to go upstairs too many times. Of course with young kids, I had to make several trips anyway. I started researching doctors and asked for recommendations. Then I saw online that using orthotics may lessen knee pains, so I started looking for people who could do orthotics. Someone told me I should try store-bought ones first and see how that goes. So I went to Wal-Mart and stepped onto the Dr. Scholls thing and bought what it recommended. I placed those on my tennis shoes. The problem was, based on my cultural upbringing, I'm not the kind of person to wear shoes at home. Even my kids removed shoes at home and either went barefoot or with indoor slippers. I then researched flipflops with arches, and came across the Orthaheel Orthopedic Sandals from Amazon. It was expensive in my opinion, at $65 dollars, but I had to try it. I've been using this since April of 2011 and I can't tell you how much better my knees feel!!!!

Instead of the pain constantly being there and ruining my mood, the pain is now forgotten! I can go up and down the stairs without having to think of all the things I should do before I go back down so I wouldn't have to go up again later. If I have to go upstairs, I just do. Sometimes there is a little pain when I bear weight as I go up the stairs, but it's more than 50% reduced compared to before, at the very least. Pain doesn't rule my day. It's not constantly there. Many days, I forget about knee pains. It's amazing!

Between the Dr. Scholls insert on my tennis shoes and the Orthaheel sandals, I am wearing high-arch footwear most of the day. As of today, I have no plans on getting surgery done on my left knee. This might change in the near future, or maybe not...but at least now it's not a foregone conclusion just yet!