Quick Knee Update: MRI Results

Saw Dr. J today (as previously mentioned) to go over my MRI results. The MRI shows no tears or anything, and no signs of arthritis, hooray! However, this does mean that I have classic patella-femoral pain, which has no simple fix. Boo.
He’s suggesting that I consider lateral release surgery, which has a very good success rate and a very low chance of making my knees worse. The down side is that even if I do both knees at once to keep recovery time to a minimum, I’d have to be off the Aikido mat for three months.
THREE MONTHS.
Sure, that’s not that long, all things considered. But given that I’m training toward my next rank, that’s a long time to not be training — especially since there’s backsliding when you’re not training, so three months off would set my progress back at least four months or so. So I’m dithering. Trying to decide whether my knees are bad enough to warrant doing the surgery.