Note
I had an MRI on my right knee this past Monday, and an appt today to review the results with the ortho doctor who I'm seeing.
The good news is that he found something in the MRI, so he is taking my problem more seriously now, spending more time with me, etc. The bad news, of course, is that he did find something, confirming a problem. It appears to be some torn or otherwise out of kilter cartilage. "Flapping in the breeze" was a term he used a couple of times. He suggests arthroscopic surgery to clean it up. That would mean about a week on crutches, and 4-6 weeks before I'm reasonably recovered.
I asked about running after surgery and recovery -- unfortunately, he really recommended against it. He said elliptical, biking, things like that would be fine. I asked about doing significant walking (long walks, for fitness), and he said that would be fine, in fact that would be beneficial. I forgot to ask him about skiing.
So, I've now had two doctors, one of whom is a knee specialist, recommend against running, so maybe I'll need to resign myself to retiring from running.
I'm on the fence about the surgery. Since I've stopped PT, the knee isn't exceedingly painful (of course, I'm doing very little at the moment, also). I suspect any surgery has some risk of complication, presumably not life threatening in the case of arthroscopic surgery, but maybe a risk of making things worse instead of better. So I need to find out a little more about the pros and cons before deciding whether to go that route or not.