Dr. H. Kurtis Biggs

Dr. H. Kurtis Biggs Board-Certified, Fellowship-Trained Joint Replacement Surgeon.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee won Olympic medals across four separate Games, so she knew something about ignoring the limits othe...
08/14/2026

Jackie Joyner-Kersee won Olympic medals across four separate Games, so she knew something about ignoring the limits other people set.

I watch her point get proven in my office every week, in both directions. I meet 45-year-olds who've quietly decided their athletic life is behind them because of a knee, and I meet 78-year-olds planning which trail they'll hike the spring after surgery. The knee tells me part of the story. What the patient believes is possible tells me the rest, and it shapes recovery more than almost any number in the chart.

Whatever your age, don't decide what's over before you have to. Sometimes the barrier really is just the knee. And knees are fixable.

If you tore an ACL or damaged a meniscus playing high school or college sports, this post is for you, even if that injur...
08/12/2026

If you tore an ACL or damaged a meniscus playing high school or college sports, this post is for you, even if that injury feels like ancient history.

A major knee injury changes the mechanics of the joint permanently, and it starts a slow process in the cartilage that plays out over decades. The medical name is post-traumatic arthritis, and research on ACL tears shows a large share of those knees develop arthritis within twenty years of the injury, even when the original repair was excellent. That's why so many former athletes in their 40s and 50s notice one knee aging ahead of the other.

The early signs are easy to rationalize away. The injured knee aches while its partner feels fine. It complains about a pickup game or a long round of golf it used to handle without a thought. It swells the evening after activity. Former athletes are also the exact people most likely to push through those signals, because they always have.

Take the old injury seriously before it makes you. Caught early, we have real options: targeted strengthening, bracing, and joint-preserving procedures that can change the trajectory. If a knee with a history has started talking to you, call my office and let's look at it together.

This question comes from patients in their 40s and 50s more than any other, and there's usually a story behind it. Someb...
08/10/2026

This question comes from patients in their 40s and 50s more than any other, and there's usually a story behind it. Somebody, sometimes another doctor, told them to tough it out until 65. So they've spent years giving things up one at a time. Basketball first, then running, then hiking, then playing on the floor with their kids.

Age is a factor in the decision. It has never been the whole decision. What matters more is the state of the knee, what the pain is taking from your life, and whether we've genuinely exhausted the alternatives. A 52-year-old with bone-on-bone arthritis who can't work a full day or sleep through the night is not served by fifteen more years of waiting, especially now that implant survivorship data stretches past 25 years.

Younger patients also have options many have never heard of, including partial replacement, which resurfaces only the damaged compartment, keeps all your ligaments, and for the right knee feels more natural and recovers faster than a total.

If you were told to come back when you're older, come get a real answer instead. Maybe it isn't surgery yet, and I'll tell you that honestly. But your plan should be based on your knee, not your birth year.

Of all the things patients apologize to me for, running might be the most common. They sit down, tell me about their kne...
08/09/2026

Of all the things patients apologize to me for, running might be the most common. They sit down, tell me about their knee, and then add that they probably did this to themselves with all those years of jogging.

The research says otherwise, and the numbers surprise almost everyone. A large review of studies covering more than 100,000 people found knee or hip arthritis in about 3.5 percent of recreational runners, compared to roughly 10 percent of people who don't run at all. Read that again: the people who never ran had nearly three times the arthritis of the people who ran for fun.

There's an interesting wrinkle, though. Elite competitive runners, the ones logging extreme mileage for decades, came in around 13 percent. So the dose matters. Moderate running appears to protect the knee, while extreme volume can overwhelm it.

Why would running help? Cartilage has no blood supply, so it depends on movement to press nutrients in and out of the tissue. Regular, moderate loading keeps cartilage nourished and may actually condition it, the same way muscle responds to exercise. A knee that does nothing is not being preserved. It's being starved.

So if you gave up running years ago to save your knees, or you've been blaming your morning jogs for your arthritis, the science is kinder to you than you think. And if your knee hurts whether you run or not, that's not something you caused. Come see me at The Joint Replacement Institute and we'll figure out what's actually going on.

Most people with knee pain can tell me their worst chair without thinking about it. It's usually the deepest, softest, m...
08/06/2026

Most people with knee pain can tell me their worst chair without thinking about it. It's usually the deepest, softest, most comfortable seat in the house, and there's a mechanical reason it causes so much trouble.

When you sit in a low or deeply cushioned chair, your hips sink below the level of your knees. Getting out of that position is essentially a deep squat, and your knees have to generate the force to lift your entire body from the hardest possible starting point. Do that thirty or forty times a day, every day, and it adds up to real strain on joints that are already complaining. It's also why so many people push off with their hands or rock forward a few times to build momentum before standing.

A few simple changes help more than people expect. Choose chairs with firm cushions and armrests, since your arms can share the work. Look for seats high enough that your hips sit level with or slightly above your knees. And if you love a chair that's too low, a firm cushion on the seat can raise you two or three inches, which your knees will feel immediately.

Getting out of a chair should not be the hardest exercise you do all day. If it has become one, that's worth mentioning at your next visit.

A patient asked me recently why a short beach walk left her knees more sore than her usual two miles through the neighbo...
08/05/2026

A patient asked me recently why a short beach walk left her knees more sore than her usual two miles through the neighborhood, and it's a question worth answering as we head into the last stretch of summer.

Sand is a surface that never pushes back the same way twice. On a sidewalk, your foot lands, the ground holds firm, and your muscles get a predictable platform to push from. On dry sand, the surface gives way under every step, which forces your muscles to work roughly twice as hard for the same distance. At the same time, all that shifting means the small stabilizing muscles around your knee are firing constantly to keep the joint steady on ground that keeps moving underneath you.

For a healthy knee, that's actually a fine workout. For an arthritic knee, it can be a lot, and it explains why a mile on the beach can feel like three or four on the pavement.

None of this means giving up beach walks. Go at low tide and stay on the packed sand near the waterline, where the surface is firm and forgiving. Save the soft, dry sand for short stretches, and think of it as strength training rather than a stroll. And if even the packed sand has become too much for your knees this summer, that's a change worth having evaluated.

Patients tell me more often than you might expect that their dog started acting differently after knee replacement surge...
07/30/2026

Patients tell me more often than you might expect that their dog started acting differently after knee replacement surgery. One patient told me her golden retriever had spent two years walking three feet behind her, and a few months after surgery he came back to her side, right where he used to walk before the pain started. Others describe dogs who bring the leash again after years of giving up on it, or who sprawl across the leg they used to carefully avoid.

None of that is coincidence. Dogs read us constantly, and chronic pain gives them a great deal to read. Pain changes your gait, your posture, how you rise from a chair, and how often you move, and dogs notice every bit of it. The research goes further than most people realize: dogs can smell the stress compounds our bodies release, and studies have found that a dog's stress hormone levels rise and fall alongside its owner's. When you hurt every day, your dog is not just watching it happen. On some level, your dog is carrying it with you.

When patients say their dog seems back to normal after surgery, what they are really describing is a dog responding to an owner who moves more, winces less, and walks farther than before.

If you have stopped being the one who takes the dog out, or if the walks keep getting shorter, consider that a data point. Your dog already has.

Did your pet's behavior change with your recovery? I would genuinely love to hear about it in the comments.

Go grab the shoes you wear most. I'll wait. Here are three tests I want you to run on them, right now.First, twist it. H...
07/28/2026

Go grab the shoes you wear most. I'll wait. Here are three tests I want you to run on them, right now.

First, twist it. Hold the heel in one hand and the toe in the other, and wring it like a towel. A shoe that twists easily gives your knee nothing to work against.

Second, bend it. Press the toe upward. It should fold at the ball of the foot, where your foot naturally bends. If it folds in the middle of the arch, the support has already failed.

Third, squeeze the heel. Pinch the back of the shoe where your heel sits. That cup should hold firm. When it collapses, your foot rolls, and the knee follows it.

Here's why this matters: the knee absorbs whatever the shoe does not. And shoes wear out from the inside long before they look worn out on the outside. A walking shoe should be replaced every six to twelve months, even if it still looks fine.

Did your shoes pass? Tell me in the comments. And for my full guide to what to wear on your feet, including the sandal question every Florida patient asks me, check out my July 2026 newsletter.

One of the strangest things about knee cartilage: it has no blood supply. It can't be fed the way the rest of your body ...
07/28/2026

One of the strangest things about knee cartilage: it has no blood supply. It can't be fed the way the rest of your body is fed. Instead, it gets its nutrition from the fluid inside your joint, and the only thing that moves that fluid through the cartilage is movement itself. Every time your knee bends, fluid gets pressed in and out like water through a sponge.

Which means a knee that sits still all day is a knee that's going hungry.

This is why I tell patients not to trust a knee that "feels fine as long as I'm resting." Resting feels good in the moment, but a joint that only feels good when you don't use it is telling you something, and long stretches of sitting are quietly working against the cartilage you have left.

The fix is simple. Get up once an hour, even for a minute. Walk to the mailbox, refill your water, do a lap around the lanai during commercials. It doesn't need to be exercise. It just needs to be motion.

Something I've learned over thousands of patient visits: knee pain doesn't just hurt. It tries to tell you that you're o...
07/27/2026

Something I've learned over thousands of patient visits: knee pain doesn't just hurt. It tries to tell you that you're old, you're a burden, everyone else your age is fine, and this is just how things are now.

None of that is true. But when you hear it every day, you start to believe it. So here are a few reminders for anyone whose knee has been talking to them lately.

Needing help isn't failing. Holding the railing, taking the elevator, or asking for a hand doesn't mean you've given up. It means you're adapting while you figure out the next step.

Pain is information. You are not "just getting old," and you are not being dramatic. Pain that changes how you live deserves a real answer.

Good days don't mean you're fine. A knee that feels great on Tuesday and terrible on Friday is still telling you something. You don't have to wait until every day is a bad day to take it seriously.

And you have more options than you think. From therapy and strengthening to today's rapid recovery protocols, this is one of the most solvable problems in medicine. You don't have to decide anything today. Just don't decide you're stuck.

Save this for a bad knee day, or send it to someone who needs to hear it. And if any of these sound familiar, my office is always a good place to start the conversation.

Address

3466 Pine Ridge Road, FL 34108
Naples, FL
34109

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 2:30pm

Telephone

+12392612663

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