Help Diagnose My Knee

[wheaton4prez]

If I remember correctly, a number of people here have said that they've had knee injuries (woundedknee?).

I was running down a steep decline so it was putting awkward pressure on my knee. I got kind of a sharp pain but could other-wise walk fine on it.

Moments later, I was just kind of paying attention to it, stress testing it to see what happened and ran up a flight of stairs. When I put a lot of weight on the knee the entire thing seized up and it hurt like hell. Since then, it has relaxed. I can walk on it. But, it feels tender and maybe a little stiff.

I tried the tests that I found on-line for PCL and ACL injuries but it doesn't hurt when pushed or pulled and feels stable. Maybe I'm not doing it right though.

Anyway, I've never had a knee injury like this before. So, I'm wondering if anyone has an idea? I'm hoping it's just a sprain that will go away with rest...

[tonyd]

Could be a slight sprain.

How to treat it is called RICE, the cornerstone for home therapy...

Rest it, Resting the your injury can help relieve discomfort and avoids further injury.

Ice- 15 to 25 minute spurts. Cold reduces swelling, retards pain, and inhibits inflammation. DO NOT USE HEAT, stay out of the Hot tub for a couple days.

Compress - Wrap it with an elastic bandage but not too tight.

Elevate- Let gravity do it's work, elevate above heart.

Do all 4 at the same time frequently throughout the day and it'll get better soon. As an Iraqi veteran with a bad back and f'ed up knees, I'm quite familiar with this method.

[whiznads]

You might also look into if it is cartilage damage

What symptoms are present with an acutely torn cartilage?

In general there is sharp pain in the knee with either full extension or deep flexion, depending on the location of the tear. There can be some swelling of the knee that usually occurs over a 24 hour period but can occur rapidly within 1-2 hours. There can also be a description of catching, popping, or even locking where the knee is unable to fully extend. If a piece of the torn articular cartilage or meniscus is wedged between the femur and tibia, the knee can be very painful and have limited motion such as locking because of the mechanical block. Symptoms of the cartilage tear may disappear on their own, but they frequently persist and require surgical treatment.

How can a cartilage tear be diagnosed?

In addition to the described symptoms, a physical exam and x-rays can be used to help with the diagnosis. Physicians may use a test in which the doctor flexes (bends) the leg, then rotates the leg outward or inward while extending it. This can elicit or reproduce the pain in the knee joint and is suggestive of a meniscal tear. Articular cartilage tears may present as joint line pain but in general are much more difficult to diagnose based on the physical exam. An MRI, which uses powerful magnets to cause the tissue to produce signals detected by a computer, can be used to confirm or identify the cartilage injury. Finally, arthroscopy, which is placing a small camera (5 millimeters in diameter) in the knee joint and displaying the images on a television screen, can be used to identify meniscal tears and articular cartilage lesions.

[woundedknees]

We are going way back here... (#8 years, to 1971) My first injury was a torn medial meniscus. (Inside, right knee)

I was a long jumper, and mildly hyper-extended it on a rock buried in the pit at Creswell High School.

The pain was briefly intense, there was some mild stiffness, and then the pain faded quickly. I was able to "walk it off", in the coach's terminology, and finished the meet, and the season without further incident.

Here's the tricky part... @ days after graduating from HS, I fell a short distance (8-10 feet), and landed on my feet. Due to the undiagnosed instability from the torn meniscus, I hyperextended the knee 90 degrees sideways, further damaging the meniscus, plus destroying the medial collateral ligament.

The result?

10 weeks in a full leg cast, plus some fairly major surgery, and long term deterioration that contributed to my full knee replacement, last year.

My personal recommendation would be to get it checked by a physician, if possible. The alternative could be very painful.

[wheaton4prez]

Thank you for the input.

I went to the doctor. After bending and twisting my knee around, she concluded that my knee-cap probably popped out of place for a moment, causing some ligament strain and soreness.

She said that everything seemed very solid and stable. So, she didn't think it was a tear or damaged meniscus.

It was a wake-up call though to get back into shape and strengthen those knees!

[woundedknees]

Good to hear, W4P... My daughter had displasia of the kneecap when she played soccer in HS. Painful, but not the long-term problem other injuries can be, if you take care to do the rest/icing/etc. necessary to allow it to heal.

[wheaton4prez]

Thank you. Yeah, it already pretty much feels fine. The worst of it was just in thinking that it was a more serious injury for a day.

[woundedknees]

The bad part about blowing up my right knee, was there was no doubt what happened when I blew the left one playing basketball...

[wheaton4prez]

I can understand that now, having gone through this. For a while, I was having all these thoughts that wouldn't normally cross my mind. "How long is this going to take to rehab." "I don't want to deal with a cast." "Crutches?" "Can I wind the clock back and pretend this didn't just happen?"

Walking is under-rated.

[woundedknees]

Before I had my right knee replacement, I got to the point where walking 100 yards was agony... All I can say, is pay attention to what your body tells you. It's worth listening to.

[spacefrog13x]

http://www.11points.com/Web-Tech/11_Tor ... oo_Answers

[UOducksTK1]

Well looks like I might have ruined my knee.

I was playing basketball, and banged knees with my brother. I fell to the floor and was in pretty bad pain for about 60 seconds (give or take 20). After the pain subsided, I started walking around. Something felt weird, but there wasn't much pain.

It started to swell up after a while and then pain was also coming back. I started icing it and now there's not much pain.

I'll probably see a doctor or give my brother (he's a neurosurgeon) a call. Hopefully it's nothing serious, but I'm afraid this could be a bencher.

[woundedknees]

My second knee injury came playing basketball with my son and his buddies... Got my leg rolled up on chasing a loose ball and partially tore the ACL in my left knee.

It's amazing how quick it happens.

[UOducksTK1]

Well my brother checked it out and likely said it's a chipped bone or internal bleeding.

Very happy, I was afraid when I first hurt it that it might have been an ACL injury!

[woundedknees]

Bone chips can be painful too.

I went fishing years ago, along the South Fork of the Coquille River. (I swear that stream has some of the slickest, smoothest boulders I have ever waded over!)

Every time I slipped, it seemed as if I landed on the vastus medialus of both knees... The longer portion of the quad set that runs down beside the knee cap.



By the time I got home, both knees were so badly swollen from the bruising, I had a difficult time getting into a dry pair of straight-leg jeans I had with me.

I was sore and swollen for a week! It honestly hurt worse, and was more uncomfortable to walk on, than my initial ACL tear.

I did catch and release well over 100 trout that day (I kept 2...), but I also never went back to that stretch of water.

If anybody is into rock hounding, there was (Probably still is.) a beautiful petrified log lying in the stream, somewhere above the first waterfall big enough to block salmon/steelhead migration upstream from the town of Powers, Oregon.