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@dadcue it happened back in 1976 or so when I was playing softball. I thought I just sprained my foot/knee and got up and played the rest of the game. Next morning I got out of bed and fell flat on my face. Couldn't put any weight on the leg and it hurt really bad. I lived in South Dakota then and Aberdeen didn't have that big of a hospital. A piece of cartilage was floating loose and locked up my kneecap and I had surgery to remove it. Also had a local spinal tap for anesthesia and watched the procedure in the reflection of a glass cabinet in the small operating room. They had put up and curtain between my head and waist but didn't know I could see what was happening. A little surreal watching it because I felt nothing but could see surgeon and PAs holding my leg.
I also have degenerative arthritis in the spine which I think is just old age. Not sure I would want a fusion either but if I had real pain it might change my mind. Right now I just have lower back aches and poor posture, forward leaning when walking.
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Same story except I hyper-extended my knee playing basketball in 1970. The immediate response from my basketball coach was to "ice it" so I did. I thought my knee was fine except the next day it swelled up as big as a basketball and wouldn't bend. After the swelling subsided, I took a hot bath every night and forced my knee to bend. I was 16 years old so what else was I supposed to do? I had another basketball game the following weekend so my leg needed to bend.
I played out the rest of the basketball season except my leg buckled a couple of times so I repeated the above process. By the end of basketball the season I had a noticeable limp so my coach asked if it was the same knee I hurt during the season. My coach wondered why I didn't see a doctor. I didn't know I was supposed to see a doctor!!
The orthopedic surgeon said my knee was "unstable." After surgery he said my knee was "deranged" and I wasn't supposed to play basketball anymore. I played anyway because it was my senior year. A loose piece of cartilage locked up my knee once but they scoped it out so that wasn't too bad.
I had another surgery which removed all the remaining cartilage from my knee. I'm not sure what else they did to my knee. The surgeon said I needed a knee replacement when I was 25 years old except I had to wait until I was at least 60 years old. I had knee replacements when I was 62 years old when they wouldn't do steroid injections anymore. They said the steroid injections were doing more harm than good.
I don't think PMR had anything to do with my knees but the surgeon said I was a poor surgical risk because of prednisone. That was when I first got acquainted with an endocrinologist who made sure I didn't have an adrenal crisis during my knee replacements.