[cookiecate]

What a good idea. I have had arthritis for many years and sort of decided to just try and live with it. I was lucky and had a job which I did well and so people tended to make allowances for the fact that I could't stand for long or walk too far and very slowly.

Until I took a year out from my job as a psychiatric nurse and when I came to apply for another job I just couldn't get one, with my experience and resume I got the interviews but was politely told that I just wasn't fit enough to be safe.

Finally I was written off as disabled until I could lose weight and get some new knees. I tried and tried to lose weight even my surgeon sent me to a clinic that offered huge weight losses as long as I drank their really expensive shakes and did not eat anything solid until I had shifted the weight.

Looking back it was awful, there were diabetics who were really obese and people who were in wheel chairs because they were so big.

I walked away from the clinic and became totally disgusted with myself and the health professionals who could not help me, all I kept thinking was if I had been an alcoholic or a drug addict they could have offered some kind of assistance but being overweight there just was no answer.

My surgeon decided that I needed the operation so badly that he would do it without the usual anesthetic, meaning that I would be awake. However, I thought this trauma was not worthwhile unless I lost the weight that had caused the problems in the first place.

Thank goodness three months ago I remembered Atkins and started again properly this time. I have already lost 20lbs and am looking forward to meeting with my surgeon again on the 7 July I know he will be pleased.

The thing is that now I find it easier to walk and I am able to walk slowly but surely nearly a mile each day now, I feel so much better and so much younger there is nothing in this world that makes you feel old than not being able to walk, dance and just move around easily being overweight contributed to this horrible state and soon I hope to have some new knees.

That won't be the end of it I know. I already have arthritis in my other joints but now being lighter I can excersise which is so beneficial to everyone with this horrid illness.