Easy Steps

After immediate relief, a knee replacement patient doubles down

Knee pain is no fun for anybody, and bone-on-bone knee pain is about as excruciating as it gets. Bettye Marable vividly remembers experiencing it in 2023.

“Oh, it interfered with everything,” she said. “Just getting across the room was painful.”

It had started with just occasional, mild discomfort. Marable powered through as best she could, until the pain was getting hard to ignore. She went to Cape Fear Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, where she learned that the cushion of cartilage in her knee joint was slowly wearing away. She was relieved to find that a cortisone shot took care of the pain—at least for a while.

“And then three months later, when I had to take my next one, it didn’t help at all,” she said. “That’s when I knew it was getting really bad.”

That cushion of cartilage was now completely worn away, leaving the bones of her knee to grind painfully against each other with every step. She felt it all day at work in her transportation job, climbing in and out of a van to get her customers from one appointment to another, and continued to suffer at home.

“I love to walk, so when I would get home from work, I always liked to take the dogs out,” she said. “But I couldn’t do that anymore.”

Marable knew the next step was surgery: a total knee replacement. She was ready to get it done, and her conversations at work brought up a surgeon whose name she was already familiar with from her visits to Cape Fear Orthopedics & Sports Medicine.

“I used to do a lot of pickups with people who had surgery, and they always would say Dr. Flanagan was good,” she said. “His name came up a lot, and I could see those people were doing better. So I said OK, I’m going to go ahead and go with him.”

James P. Flanagan, MD, is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who has spent two decades treating injuries and conditions of the ankle, elbow, foot, hip, knee and shoulder. He said he was drawn to this specialty back in his teens.

“We have a family friend who is an orthopedic surgeon,” he said, “and going into high school I knew that’s what I wanted to be. It’s a very hands-on, immediately rewarding specialty because you get to fix things and make people feel better almost instantly.”

“The whole office just really felt very welcoming, and I felt like they understood what I needed. I was just fighting through pain for so long, and I’m glad I don’t have to fight with it anymore.” - Bettye Marable

Dr. Flanagan said the typical patient for a knee replacement goes through the same things Marable was experiencing: pain that increases over time, and eventually is not eased by the usual methods. When that bone-on-bone pain has set in, the conversation turns to surgery.

“They are always nervous,” he said, “but we try to encourage them that the outcome will be worth the surgery.”

Marable said her nerves were outweighed by an eagerness to get back to her old self. The procedure went smoothly, and after a brief stay in the hospital, she was recovering at home.

“The recovery was not as bad as I was expecting,” she said. “I was really kind of impressed because my pain was gone. Just completely gone.”

Over the next days and weeks, Marable kept up with her physical therapy appointments to gradually bring her new knee up to speed. With practice, she regained her range of motion in that leg as it healed.

That diligence with physical therapy is crucial, according to Dr. Flanagan.

“It probably is the most important part of the surgical recovery,” he said. “Good outcomes are directly related to physical therapy compliance.”

Marable was so pleased with her outcome that nine months later, when increasing pain was becoming a problem in her other knee, she went back to Dr. Flanagan for a second knee replacement. Now she’s walking around on two new knees and feeling better than she has in years. She recommends Dr. Flanagan to anyone going through a similar experience.

“I really liked him,” she said. “The whole office just really felt very welcoming, and I felt like they understood what I needed. I was just fighting through pain for so long, and I’m glad I don’t have to fight with it anymore.”

To make an appointment with Cape Fear Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, call (910) 484-2171.