@lioness “just” arthritis can be pretty limiting, depending on your lifestyle. I was not (yet) bone on bone, but I had to 1-step every time I faced stairs, and it hurt every time I walked for exercise, or got up out of a chair, or a car, and the tipping point for me was when I went on a very gently hike with one of my grandsons and his family and simply could not handle a slight downhill without hanging on to shrubs, trees, someone’s arm.......or I would have to have backed down the trail. That was after the arthroscopic surgery, and before I heard about stem cells. So TKR it was.
Regarding my brother, contrary to what I expected (he lives in a small city in Austria), there is a whole lot of un-traditional, experimental, holistic treatments available there, much more readily than in my adopted home (40 yrs. +) in SC. Not sure where you are located, but perhaps you also have more options, or at least, you know to ask about alternatives, which I did not (and you may already know anyway without my 2 cents.)