Anne Ashford flinches when she begins to recall the painful "grinding and grating" in her swollen knees when her osteoarthritis was at its worst about seven years ago.

Her first surgeon booked her in for arthroscopic knee surgery, but it had to be postponed because of a cancer diagnosis in the family. She never went ahead with it and says it's one of the best decisions she's ever made.

Anne Ashford is grateful that she never went through with arthroscopic knee surgery to treat her osteoarthritis pain. Credit:Nick Moir

"I got more opinions and the third surgeon referred me to a rheumatologist who said I should first consider making lifestyle changes, like losing weight and doing knee-focused exercises, and the pain went down from nine out of 10 to three out of 10," said Ms Ashford, a 73-year-old retired academic from Kingsford.

"I was lucky because it was at a time when the surgery was common and people were not thinking like that."