Arthritis: Young People Get It, Too

Luckily, it’s just mild for me right now

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash.

I would never have expected my hip/leg joint discomfort to arise from arthritis. Not that I had any scientific reason to rule it out. I just had always associated arthritis with elderly people’s hands.

I don’t think I was entirely alone in my thinking, however; the “most common misconception about arthritis is that it’s a disease only [belonging to] old people.”

After over a year of my leg cracking whenever I walked, and constantly feeling a low-level discomfort, I figured I should go to the doctor. A little late, but better than never. The doctor originally told me she couldn’t see anything wrong in my x-ray and I left questioning myself.

But a couple days later, she followed up with a blunt, one-sentence message saying that I had arthritis. No follow-up.

Part of me didn’t want to learn more, but I finally reached out with questions. The doctor’s theories for why I might have gotten it didn’t fit with my experiences, and I guess the reason doesn’t really change anything.

The relevant part going forward is that I’ll need physical therapy to train myself to shift weight from my hip so as to not make the problem worse. Exercising too much could increase the damage, too. Still, I don’t know…