Good Morning, Angela (and all) -

If you can (individually - and all) step back a little bit from the individual tough circumstances of your own "tree",
you can begin to appreciate that there is a literal huge "forest" of unsupervised recovery out there - with most
of these folks - some with slightly different circumstances fighting essentially the same battle; that is - that our
recovery is often a losing race against inflammation and resultant scar tissue formation... with surprisingly so
many of us willing to "accept" what we are getting as a long term outcome (although this is NOTHING like what
was described to us - when they were trying to get us scheduled for surgery). What other business would expect
to be paid in full for these kinds of results (and an additional financial insult to previous injury - if there are MUAs,
arthroscopies, and revision surgeries required). Having a bad long term outcome actually represents a further
advantage to the medical surgical and device industries. You know what I'm also starting to wonder... I'm wondering
how much of this joint replacement surgery gone wrong (for the patients) is contributing to opioid pain medication
problems with dependency and worse outcomes on that. Now that pharma (J&J Jannsen, Purdue, etc.) have been
caught with their hands in the cookie jar both in misrepresenting the dangers and then with their own research in
hand showing these... went out and more aggressively marketed "the product". When does someone trippingover
that "elephant in the room" start the discussion of WHY so many people (who NEVER took pain meds before) are'in such serious chronic pain - that now (and for the forseeable future) they have to. This kind of pain is not something you can be "counseled out
of", "meditated out of"... or can it be ignored by a "more positive mindset". At some point, the medical surgeical device industry
must be held responsible for their outcomes (and only WHEN they start to be - will they EVER have much interest in being personally
or at all - involved in their patient's recoveries). As long as they don't absolutely "have to be"... they won't be. It isn't (or shouldn't be)
a question of "Well... they're not getting paid enough to also provide this". My last TKR cost slightly over $94K (believe it or not) and
the MUA (which took less than 15 minutes of my surgeon's time - basically wrenching my knee around while I was under anesteasia)
was about $ 8.7K (and neither of these charges included the anesthesiaologist - who had a separate charge for each) This is a little like the $500 toilet seats for the Dept. of Defense.... where you have the public subsidizing costs which are completely unjustified as
far as the result received... and like those "no bid contracts" there is exactly ZERO review of cost versus benefit. When you look at
JUST the TKR surgical market, you can easily understand how the whole medical situation in this country is completely out of control
and maybe a race to see if they bankrupt us before they kill us (or vice-versa). The reason "no one is looking at this"... is because of
so much money spread around politics (with both parties) by Pharma, Medical, Surgical, and Device industry lobby groups. Of course,
they don't want a thing changed (and why would they ?)

Angela (and all), I REALLY want to hear of good results in each of your own individual cases (and it is heartbreaking to me personally
to hear so many who continue to have problems - as do I), but this is not at all an "Individual" problem - it's a systemic problem which
puts us all at risk. most TKR patients probably do end up with slightly better or just plain "bettter" outcomes than what they started with.
But we all should know by now - that there are a whole lot of people... who do not. And what happens to them ? To us ?

Definitely (Angela and others) please keep me posted on things you have done or tried - that have worked... and things that have not.
For me... the latest TKR has less consistent inflammation (probably because of the hypoallergenic prosthetic - this time, and a much
more restricted nearly salt-free, gluten-free, and sort of anti-inflammatory generally diet... which includes fresh fruit, dark berries, pecans, tumeric, and other items known to have anti-inflammatory properties). Still (for me) inflammation and pain (daily) drives
me to elevate and "ice" the leg several times daily. This "steals from me" most of my motivation and determination to get things done
and honestly... tends to make me a much more disagreeable person to be around (especially considering also regular sleep disruption
due to pain - mostly).

I'm not especially religious (honestly), but I doubt there is one of us who has not at times "prayed" and just generally asked for help
from whatever might be out there, up there ? Any help would be welcome. But... back here on earth... there is a definite cause and
effect relationship going on with these surgeons and their patients and I think objectively there are a lot of things going on that are
just plain "wrong"... and I think we would be hard pressed to put this down to just "hard luck" or "fate". For what it's worth (and maybe not much), I'm starting by wiriting my own congressman and senator (and I encourage you to do the same). Realistically, they probably
have more to lose than to gain by getting (at all) involved... including that political figures who make the most noise about the evils of "government sponsered healthcare" would never stop accepting the very best (and involved) care paid entirely at taxpayer expense.

But... that's what I'm doing, because I have to do something - and who knows ?

My best (all),

John
sponsered healthcare