Myra Amodie is an active 82-year-old who swims six days a week, walks frequently, and is an avid gardener.
However, severe knee pain and swelling from a condition called hemarthrosis were keeping Myra from doing what she loved.
Searching for relief, she found Anish Ghodadra, MD, an interventional radiologist at UPMC. Dr. Ghodadra performed two genicular artery embolization (GAE) procedures to block the bleeding into Myra’s knee joint.
Today, Myra is pain-free and back to doing what she loves.
“He is remarkable,” Myra says of Dr. Ghodadra. “I don’t know how old his parents are, but he recognized me as a person and not as an 82-year-old woman.
“I appreciated that so much because I am able to do a lot. I can’t do the things I did when I was 50, but I can do a lot. And I am grateful — beyond grateful — for him.”
‘Excruciating’ Pain
Myra, a former high school science teacher, underwent joint replacement surgery on her right knee in July 2019. In April 2021, she experienced her first episode of severe pain and swelling in the knee.
“The pain was beyond a 10, and I’m not one to complain much,” says Myra, of Peters Township, Pa. “My whole body would shake. It was something I could not control. The pain was excruciating.”
Myra’s doctors prescribed pain medication and told her to stay off her leg, which worked temporarily. But in 2024, she began taking a blood thinner medication and had two more episodes in two months.
Myra had hemarthrosis, a condition that involves bleeding into the knee joint.
When someone has knee arthritis, abnormal blood vessels develop in the lining of the knee joint. These abnormal blood vessels can remain even after a knee replacement and can have recurrent bleeding episodes. Because Myra was taking blood thinners, she was at greater risk for these bleeding episodes.
“Think of the knee looking like a giant balloon — really swelling up,” says Leigh Ann Gorman, Myra’s daughter. “Even when the pain started to abate, it would take days for the swelling to go down. And it would be really stiff. She could hardly walk. She had to use the walker, which she isn’t a big fan of.”
Myra visited the surgeon who had performed her knee replacement surgery. He gave her a brace and a knee sleeve but told her he couldn’t do anything more for her.
That was difficult for Myra to hear, especially because her condition was causing a mental and physical burden. She would avoid activities because she worried about having another episode.
“I always had a fear that it was going to happen again, and that fear took its toll,” she says. “You think, ‘Well, maybe I’d better not walk on the trail because I’m afraid if it happens on the trail, I won’t be able to get help.’ It was an emotional drain.”
Myra had been the primary caregiver for her husband, who died of Parkinson’s disease in 2023. Seeing their mother’s medical setback was hard for Leigh Ann and her sister, Laura.
“I think my sister and I were both like, ‘OK, no,’” Leigh Ann says. “We just watched her go through some really, really challenging years, and I think we were both very determined to make sure that we got her the treatment.”
Finding the Right Care
Laura, a doctor in Maryland, contacted an orthopaedic colleague in Arizona. The colleague, in turn, connected her with Kenneth Urish, MD, a reconstructive orthopaedic surgeon at UPMC.
Myra and Leigh Ann met with Dr. Urish in July 2024. Dr. Urish told Myra he didn’t have a solution, but he referred her to Dr. Ghodadra.
“(Dr. Urish) said, ‘You know, I understand how bad this is. And I can’t help you out, but we have this interventional radiologist doing this treatment, and I think you should go see him,’” Leigh Ann says.
Later that week, Myra and Leigh Ann met Dr. Ghodadra.
“One of the things that struck me the most when I first met Myra was here’s somebody who wants to be active, who’s full of life and has been unable to do what she’s wanted to do because of the issue she was having with her knee,” Dr. Ghodadra says.
“She was pretty upset, pretty frustrated with her lack of quality of life and just how debilitating this knee pain was.”
Dr. Ghodadra told Myra he had a potential solution with GAE. This minimally invasive procedure involves threading a catheter into the abnormal blood vessels and injecting tiny particles to plug them.
“The idea behind the GAE is, if those blood vessels that shouldn’t be there are causing these issues, then why don’t we take care of those blood vessels?” Dr. Ghodadra says.
Embolization — blocking blood flow — has treated many conditions for many years, but GAE for the knee only emerged within the past decade.
Myra says she “almost cried” when Dr. Ghodadra told her about the GAE procedure.
“I said, ‘Thank you. Do it. I’m very willing to try anything because I’m so afraid of this happening again,’” Myra says. “I’ve always been an active person, and to think that all of a sudden, my life was gone? That’s how I felt. I felt, I can’t live like this — with this fear — and I don’t want to go through the pain again.”
A Pair of Procedures
Dr. Ghodadra performed a GAE procedure on Myra in July 2024. A few months later, she had another episode of swelling and pain, although it was less severe than before.
“In about 40% of patients, the blood vessels are robust enough and the connections in between the blood vessels are large enough that they actually require a second embolization,” Dr. Ghodadra says.
“They may do well after the first embolization for a period of time — a couple weeks, a couple months — but about four out of 10 patients do have a repeat episode of bleeding after that first embolization and require that second embolization.”
Myra had her second GAE procedure in November 2024. Because the procedure doesn’t require full anesthesia, Myra remembers staying awake and asking Dr. Ghodadra questions throughout the procedure.
“I was very interested in the screens and exactly what was going on,” Myra says. “I absolutely was fascinated by the technology he was using. That’s amazing what they can do today.”
A week after the procedure, Myra and her family celebrated Thanksgiving in Hilton Head, S.C.
“She’s walking on the beach, and I’m watching her do all these things that I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do again,” Leigh Ann says.
Back to Living
Now, several months after her second GAE procedure, Myra is living life the way she wants to. She’s back to swimming, walking, and spending time with her family, including her four grandchildren.
Best of all, “I don’t have that fear,” Myra says. “I am over that fear that it’s going to happen again.”
Leigh Ann is thankful to Dr. Ghodadra for looking beyond Myra’s age and doing everything he could to help her.
“There’s a truth to a lot of doctors seeing an 82-year-old patient and saying, ‘There’s maybe not a lot we can do, and these things happen a lot in our 80s,’” Leigh Ann says. ”And he treated her like a 30-year-old patient — like, ‘Let’s get you back in the pool, let’s get you walking your dog.’
“He valued her life. He valued that she still had years ahead of her. That optimism and excitement — we were so grateful.”
Myra says she’s spread the word about GAE to other doctors to help patients like her.
“I am sure there are many, many patients like me who need help and don’t know where to go,” she says.
Dr. Ghodadra says GAE has the potential to help many patients with hemarthrosis. It could even treat osteoarthritis, potentially delaying the need for a knee replacement.
“In interventional radiology, we treat everything from cancer patients to patients who have life-threatening blood clots,” he says. “But the most number of times I have heard from patients, ‘Hey, Doc, you saved my life,’ has come from these patients.
“Pain is truly life-altering. We often take the ability to move around for granted, and these patients who have pain, just getting through the day is a constant, painful battle. To be able to give the ability to move back to folks, it’s been very exciting and humbling.”