How bad before a referral

Ask for a referral to a surgeon who will sort you out. Once you get to bone on bone it gets very painful and difficult to move. Surgery will see you pain free and moving around like normal. You have had the first step of the steroid injection sounds like you need more help 

Hi Taff

You should ask for a referral.  Tell your GP your fears, and how it is affecting your life and (presumably) your sleep.  The very least he should do is send you for an Xray to determine the extent of the wear and tear.  For my hip, my bones were literally rubbing together by the time I got my op, and although I'm not suggesting you lie, you really need to stress how much pain you are in.

Good luck   

I don't know if you're from the UK or the US or some other country but I will talk to you about the US way to go about it in case you are from the US. Unless your insurance requires it you really don't need a referral you just go to an orthopedic surgeon. Some orthopedic surgeons I do require a referral from your GP. But I would call and ask first that way you might very well be able to just skip over that part.

An orthopedic surgeon should want to do an MRI but may want you to have an X-ray done first. And he or she can make the proper recommendations to you. And if he wants to do another injection on your knee I would do it. I discovered that if my orthopedic surgeon did the injection in my knee it hurt like hell but it worked. If his PA did it then it didn't do any good but it didn't hurt very much either. My thinking is that the orthopedic surgeon did a better job of finding the right place to stick the needle in.

What you need to remember ear that if you are in the UK then this is not a quick process, it can take weeks or mo this to get the first appointment and then another month or so for the next one and then you go on a waiting list so it could easily be almost a year from now when you might have surgery, which is why it's important to start the process now 

I'm in the UK. Scotland to be specific. I'm 51 and have osteoarthritis in both knees. I was told for 4 years at my doctors surgery I was too young for a knee replacement. One day I had an appointment with a new doctor who sent me for up to date x-rays. Long story short, she referred me for a tkr and was done really quickly. My knees were described as horrible and the surgeon said it was worse than he thought when he opened me up. I'm 6 weeks post op now. Speak up! I will from now on. Even the nurses in hospital said they're seeing younger people in for surgery now

I have spoken to my GP and he says he can refer me, but has said I am high risk so wants me to think about it as having a replacement as it may not improve my lifestyle.