Welcome to my world. I have almost no cartilege left in one knee, the other one is beat to hell, and the back is beyond repair according to my neurosurgeon. They offer me all kinds of nifty pain killers, but since I'm going to school full time, I can't/won't take them. (I tell the doc I'm stupid enough naturally, I don't need any chemical help with that!)
I take quite a bit of aspirin, excedrin, ibuprofen and naproxen. I am always careful to take it with food to help minimize the amount of stomach discomfort however...with a stomach as big as mine, that'd be a LOT of discomfort...
You may have to experiment with different NSAIDS and/or combinations of them. Excedrin is basically aspirin, acetominophen, and caffiene, so at night, I might take the aspirin and tylenol so I don't get the caffiene, or aspirin and ibuprofen, etc. Again, you have to be cautious of stomach irritation, but taking them with some food helps me a LOT.