Knee pain

You can try to treat it yourself with things like glucosamine and chondroitin and see if you see an improvement, or you can find another orthopedic surgeon in your area and have an MRI to see if there's significant arthritis building up in your knees. The list of "things we can do" short of knee replacement surgery has probably changed since 2003. It won't hurt you to try the glucosamine/chondroitin but it may not help you either. Give it a couple months before you decide it isn't working. In the meantime, you should get some referrals to a good orthepedic surgeon in your area.

The good news for you is that there have been many advances in knee surgery. Find a well respected local doctor and get an evaluation. You should be able to ask any serious runner or tennis player and get a good name.

First thing I'd do is treat myself with low dose Advil, once/day to see what happens. If you start to get some relief, you might up the dose, or stay on the one/day routine.

Surgery would be my very last choice ( for obvious reasons...).

You must definitely seek for a good doctor to guide you better though I am not a specialist but I have known about glucosamine and chondroitin that have been very effective for arthritis pain relief. They dull the pain and also help in building the cartilage that prevents the bones rubbing from each other and reduce the pain.