I had both knees replaced when I was about your age....I cannot remember the exact year now. Seems so long ago now.
Oh, how I suffered before they finally did the first one. The doctor I was going to told me I should wait until I was in my 60s. When he decided to offer me that injection, I spent a lot of time reading about them and talking to people in his waiting room. I was there quite a bit and met a lot of people. I never found one person it worked for. At the time I was getting friendly with the physical therapists and finally they did give me a few names of other ortho surgeons (I had to beg ..haha) . Well, when I went to UTMB to see a new surgeon, he was shocked when he saw the films. I had so much necrosis in my knees. One was much worse so he scheduled that one. The other one went bad about a month later. He made me wait until I was four months past that initial surgery and then did the other one.
I have heard people say bad things about that surgery and recovery but for me it was a breeze! As long as I did my exercises faithfully I did well and the pain was really not so bad. Instead of waking up every day with the pain increasing, I was waking up every day with the pain DEcreasing. Now, it is like I never had surgery. I LOVE MY KNEES!
All I can say is don't let it go on too long, Donna. I suffered much longer than necessary. I was on crutches and having to shop only in places where they had wheelchairs. It was dreadful! Big day out was Target. sheesh