Patella Problems

I have genetically weak knees. My mother has had surgery twice on one of her knees, and the other is in need of surgery because it has no cushioning left under the patella (due to arthritis) but mom refuses to undergo another painful and deblilitating knee surgery. My 99 year old grandmother, who just died last week, had arthritis in her knees, wrists, fingers and hips. She also had osteoporosis, but would never admit it, though her back was bowed so far she looked like a question mark from the side.
I remember listening to the crepidus in my mothers knees make a sound like the popping of rice krispies cereal in milk whenever she walked up or down the stairs in our home in Sailorville. In the last 10 years, my left knee has started to make that same noise, and it would occaisionally give out on me when I was walking down long flights of stairs when I worked at the PNA. But I've been trying, since my 20s, to be good to my knees and only do low-impact aerobics, leg-strengthening exercises and keeping my weight down, with varying degrees of success.
I've talked before about my episodes of edema and pain in my feet and ankles, and how staying away from sodium nitrate keeps me from repeat episodes of leg bloat. Over the holidays, as I was stressfully stuffing myself with sweets, I also managed to stop by 7-11 several times for the sodium-nitrate-filled hot dogs or "big bites" as they're called in the convenience store world. But this time, instead of swelled and painful ankles and feet, I got a swollen left knee. Then I attended boot camp class two weeks ago and, in the process of doing "crab tag" which was basically running on your hands and balls of your feet sideways while trying to tag everyone else in the class (after being tagged, you were required to drop and do 5 push ups), I managed to move sideway to the right while my knee went left, and pull something under my kneecap. So now my knee was doubly swollen, painful and there was limited range of motion. I thought of trying to wrap it in an ace bandage, but Janice seemed to think that the only way to actually get my knee back into shape was to keep working it without bandages. Not wanting to be considered a wimp, I concurred, and have spent the last couple of weeks favoring my left leg in class. Fortunately, this week it seems to be better, probably because I've been sucking down a lot of Aleve after class each night. I'm hoping that now that the holidays are over and my stress levels are sinking slowly, that I will be able to stop snarfing sugary breakfast cereals for snacks and that I can stay away from the call of the convenience store hot dogs! I feel like I still have four of the 9 pounds I gained over Christmas yet to lose, but I am going to the gym regularly, at least 4 times a week, and I work out hard while I am there, so I hope to start making my way back down on the scale soon. I have summer boot camp to look forward to, and while I am waiting for some warmer temps and a little sprint sunshine, one of the instructors at Work It Out has decided to revive the Sunday Spouse Spin class! WAHOO! Now if I can just persuade Jim to go to class with me, I will be all set. It has been too cold and rainy for us to take a family walk on Sundays, but this would be a great substitute for that until the weather warms up. Meanwhile, I plan on checking out that new drink that has glucosamine and condroitin in it for joint health that has been advertised on TV. I don't know if it's dairy free or not, but it looks promising.