Hi, The treatment of knee arthritis is based on how much severe your pain is and how much it affects your physical activity. If the knee pain is limiting your ambulation and walking distance considerably that even getting around the house is difficult, I suggest getting a knee replacement done. It also depends upon how bad the X-ray of your knee looks and your age. If the pain is not so bad you can start off doing some exercises for quadriceps muscles and try to lose weight, since both of these will off load your knee and reduce the amount of pain as well. The third option is getting an steroid injection in your knee joint but that only helps for a temporary period of time, which is variable from patient to patient. These days the recovery of knee replacements is quite rapid and rehabilitation is done early. So I suggest keeping the above factors in mind before making your decision. Take care. Hope I have answered your question. Let me know if I can assist you further. Regards, Dr. Raunak, Orthopedic Surgeon