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Osteoarthritis and Exercise

Patient's Experience

Marie reports that she started exercising because it was good for her; it was the right thing to do. She did not enjoy it at first. As she started feeling better, however, she began to like to exercise. She started slowly with body sculpting classes and is now taking aerobics classes twice a day, five days a week. "Exercise gave me my life back. The aquasize classes got me started and gave me enough strength to move onto land and since then I can do even more." Marie has lost 40 pounds in the last two years. She says now she can walk forever. Even if she happens to overdo it with exercise, she gets tired, but her knees rarely hurt. "The most exciting day for me was during a step class. We did a move where we jumped up onto the step, and I did it! I couldn't believe it and it didn't even hurt. I can do jumping jacks on the floor now. When I started in the pool, those were very hard for me."

Being re-evaluated at the university every six months gave Marie an objective scale that allowed her to see the improvement she was making. "If only I had started long before now, I wouldn't have had to spend so many years in pain."