Analog, shoot me an email for ya. I would not expect you to lay out the crap online other than the basic. Gather records that show that you are refractory to all standard treatments, except surgery.....and any reasons surgery would be harmful to you...in a doctors mind. If you know how to use the PM function here, use it from the main can com page.

As far as knee replacements....I have witnessed the surgery, yes, it is barbaric. I have also seen folks go from horrid pain to functional. My (I hope) daughter-in-law to be is in her early 20's and had a knee replacement in her teens as she destroyed her knee practicing for the Olympics. She functions normally now, I can't even tell she had the surgery. The bad part about knee replacement is the physical therapy after the surgery. That is painful and the better you do early the better the long term result.

Same holds true for hips, and they often have much more trouble after the fact than the knee surgery.