How I Eradicated My Knee Pain and Avoided Surgery with FOOD!

Some of you already know my story, but many of you don’t. And when I literally resolved my horrible knee pain after changing the food I ate, I swore I would try to help as many people as possible by sharing my story. 

The funny thing is, I was always a healthy eater—an annoyingly clean eater who has definitely driven people nuts with my pontificating! 

So when I ran into my friend Steve at the gym and asked him how his knee pain was—we had been comparing notes and therapies, and neither one of us was having any success—he said, “GREAT!” 

I was like, “WHHATTT???” 

He told me he had been eating an anti-inflammatory diet for the past two weeks and his pain was gone. I asked him how he was so sure it was the diet, and he said, “All my other achy joints are better too!” 

Now, in typical me fashion, I was thinking to myself, “There is no way he eats like I do. He probably lives on processed food and pizza, not the healthy diet I am eating!” 

So I asked him to send me the diet. I did not believe it could help me because my diet was already “healthy,” but I was definitely curious AND desperate. I had made the decision to get knee surgery, so at this point, I had nothing to lose. 

Steve sends me the diet, I open it up, and here are the foods to avoid for two weeks: Dairy, peanuts, eggs, gluten, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, corn, and soy. 

Out of those nine foods, I ate five almost every day and the others fairly regularly. Peanut butter, dairy, soy lattes, sourdough bread, and eggs were staples in my diet. I ate variations of them every day. I could not believe that these “healthy foods” could possibly be hurting me. I was very skeptical. 

Once again, though, I was desperate and wanted to avoid surgery, so I thought, I can do this for two weeks. It won’t kill me. 

By the way, I also eliminated nightshades—eggplant, tomatoes, and potatoes—because I knew they could be problematic for some people as well. 

I started the diet on Sunday morning, and by Monday evening I was playing platform tennis with my friends with NO PAIN. Even my friends were asking me, “Weren’t you limping the other day and could barely walk?” I told them what I was doing, and they—and I!—still didn’t quite believe it was really happening. I thought it must be a fluke. 

Then the first week went by. 

No pain. 

Then the second week. 

No pain. 

I started to believe that some of these foods I loved were, in fact, hurting me. Maybe there is something to this anti-inflammatory diet. 

I AM NOT SAYING THESE ARE UNHEALTHY FOODS. I want to be very clear about this. 

But for some of us, especially as we age and our body chemistry changes, foods we were once able to eat with no reaction may begin to affect us differently. That certainly seemed to be the case with me. 

And there is really no way to know which foods might be contributing to your symptoms unless you eliminate them for a period of time and then slowly add them back. 

After two weeks on the diet, you start adding one food back at a time for three days. 

Honestly, I was in no rush to add the foods back because I knew that if I did, I might cause that horrible knee pain to return. I was literally frightened to figure out which foods were the culprits. But I also love food, and I did not want to restrict my diet that much forever. I really did want to figure out which foods seemed to trigger inflammation for me. 

So I did. 

Every three days, I added one food group back into my diet. When I started to flare—for me, my knee would begin to feel stiff—I stopped eating that food. If there was no reaction after three days, I moved on and tried another. 

It turns out that my body seems to be sensitive to sugar, dairy, soy, eggs, gluten, and I think peanut butter, although I haven’t fully confirmed that one. 

The GOOD NEWS 

This does not mean I can never eat these foods again. 

Remember, in the beginning I told you I was eating five of these foods every single day? 

I was creating a perfect storm in my body. By eating foods that seemed to trigger me day after day, my body was screaming at me: STOP! 

So now, I titrate these foods almost like a drug. I pay attention to the dose. To be truthful, I felt so good eating this way that I never really went off the anti-inflammatory diet entirely. 

I follow about a 90/10 rule—I stay on it approximately 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time I sprinkle some of these foods back into my diet. 

It works beautifully for me. 

No more horrible knee pain, and I am back to doing all the things I love—including box jumps! I even did a 5K with my daughter three months later just to prove to myself that I could! 

I now feel like I am in control of the situation. 

Before, my knee pain was completely controlling me. It was stealing my joy and taking away so many of the things I loved to do. Consequently, it was beginning to affect my mental state. I learned firsthand that our ability to move and do the things we love is directly connected to how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. 

My knee pain was making my life small. 

I couldn’t even walk a half mile with my dog anymore, and I was genuinely concerned that I was beginning to fall into a depressed state. Chronic pain can do that. Going through this experience gave me a much deeper understanding of chronic pain and compassion for those who suffer with it every day. I understand how people can become dependent on pain medication when they are living with relentless pain. 

That’s why I had made the decision to have surgery. I could not live like that anymore... and then I bumped into my friend Steve. 

I am not promising anything to anyone, and my experience is just that—my experience. 

But if you are tired of living in pain, you may want to talk with a qualified healthcare professional about whether an elimination diet could be worth trying before moving on to more invasive measures. 

There are many different versions of elimination diets out there. You can research them, talk with a registered dietitian or nutrition professional, or reach out to me and I’ll happily share the approach I used. 

If my story resonates with you, I hope it inspires you to explore what may be possible. I have always believed that Movement Is Medicine. 

Now I also know, from my own experience, that Food Is Medicine too!