Saturday, March 5, 2011

Update on "Saving My Knees," the Book

I realize there are a certain number of you out there finding this blog for the first time, feeling that you've dropped in during the middle of a conversation.

Nothing wrong with that. That's what a good blog should aspire to being: a lively conversation.

However, I imagine you first-time readers may be wondering: What is this book, Saving My Knees? Is it worth my time to buy, especially if I don't have a Kindle already?

Saving My Knees is my story of beating chronic knee pain and how I discovered much of what I was told to do, as a patient, was demonstrably, provably WRONG or MISGUIDED. The book is an argument (for a certain approach to overcoming knee pain). The book is a refutation (I hope) of the standard treatment regimen for chondromalacia/patellofemoral pain syndrome.

It has been on sale through Amazon.com for more than a month and has done better than I expected. What's more, a handful of copies have gone to buyers abroad, which really makes me happy, as it shows that the dissemination of my message isn't being constrained by geographical borders.

So who am I anyway? Not a doctor. Not a physical therapist. But I am a longtime journalist, a fairly bright guy, an analytical thinker with the ability to synthesize knowledge, and someone who is open-minded enough to know that the experts aren't always right ...

If you are a smart, discriminating person, willing to question authority when appropriate (I slavishly followed the advice of my physical therapists and doctors until I realized their advice didn't make sense), and you have knee pain, you should read this book. I don't mean to sound arrogant with the preceding characterization -- it's just that I've spent a lot of time lately on knee pain message boards. And I know there is a certain kind of person my book won't reach. Even though physical therapy has failed, that person has either jumped on the surgery merry-go-round (and once you're on that carousel, you often stay on it, I'm afraid) or can't quite wrap their head around the idea that current medical practices could be wrong.

These are the same kind of people who, 200 years ago, were being bled into bleeding bowls to cure problems such as acne and who weren't questioning why their acne wasn't getting better. (A colorful analogy I like to trot out from time to time -- medical science at any given moment in time will be imperfect; that's simply reality!)

I wrote Saving My Knees because there are NO OTHER books anywhere written in the first-person that chronicle how someone triumphed over knee pain after being told his knees would never get better. I wrote it because I followed a rigorous, fact-based approach to healing that I knew would be relevant for other knee pain sufferers. I wrote it because, selfishly, I wanted to plant a flag, on January 2011 (the publication date), showing that I was in the early vanguard of people who figured this out years before everyone else does.

Yes, I'm pretty confident that a lot of the thinking about knee pain treatment is going to evolve significantly over the next two or three decades.

So, if you're on the fence about buying Saving My Knees, you can:

Go here to read my (rather long) KneeGuru thread announcing the release of the book (and what it's about).

Go here to read my (really, really long) KneeGuru thread about my success story beating knee pain.

Go here to find out how to read an electronic book, if you don't have a Kindle (hint: it's easy).

And if you want to just hang out at this blog for a while, making up your mind, that's fine too ;).

10 comments:

  1. Richard, I got curious and researched, again, the issue of format conversion of ebooks. I found an easier method than what I'd seen in the past. I purchased your book, performed the format conversion, and am now reading it on my Nook. Amazon would consider this an illegality, but given that I purchased your ebook for my sole use, I don't see an ethical violation in my choice.

    I've read about one-third of your book and am
    looking forward to getting through the rest of it this weekend. Your careful approach and success with your knees are inspiring.

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  2. That's terrific, Patricia -- sorry you had to go through the conversion process, and I promise not to tell Amazon if you don't. :) The book will be Nook-friendly in another month or two; I'm getting there. Hope you find it illuminating!

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  3. reading your book and enjoying it very much, being an avid dual knee pain sufferer myself. got the free kindle for pc. halfway through the book and the pages are just flying. great job!

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  4. Thanks, Carlo! If you think it may help someone else with knee pain -- tell them about it! I almost didn't write the book, after saving my own knees. I had put this nightmare behind me and didn't want to think about it any longer. But then I wondered if, after doing so much research and experimenting so much, I had a larger responsibility, to spread the word about healing knee pain. So I gritted my teeth and finished it. When I read comments like yours, I'm glad I did ... cheers.

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  5. i actually haven't met any other person yet with the kind of chronic knee pain i have, but i hear their stories all the time on forums. people seem to look at me funny when i tell them that surgeries from almost 4 years ago have yet to heal. doctors have pretty much been useless and it gets frustrating when they continue to give me the same advice expecting different results. i think they call that insanity. anyway, this is one reader who thanks you for writing this book.

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  6. Hi Richard, I was glad to read about your story (I am a 21 year veteran of a similar ailment) and wanted to purchase your book. However the kindle for mac requires an OS version that I dont have and the Mac is the only device we have for reading such things. Is it possible to order a PDF or something similar from you? Thanks heaps

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  7. Hi Ben! I have no .pdf version at the moment, sorry. I'm trying to make the book available through other sources soon (such as the Barnes & Noble Nook device). I will post that information once I've done so ... hopefully that will help you. If not, maybe we can find another solution!

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  8. The links above to your KneeGuru stories are broken, and I was quite interested to read. Do you have replacement or fixed links, sir? -Erik

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  9. Ah no, my KneeGuru posts were all deleted by the operator of the site. Full story here: http://bit.ly/NohXD2

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  10. Ah! Makes me want to create a Guru account just to ask the operator why she deleted such a valuable account with so much wonderful information. Either she didn't do nearly enough investigation, or she had another agenda for someone not conforming to today's regurgitated process for healing knees. -Erik

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