Reviving this to tell a little bit about my story. I fractured my Tibial Plateau february 23 skiing, along with a full thickness meniscal contusion. It was non-displaced and treatment was non surgical. I injured it on a bad landing, felt a crunch or 2 pops (which I though was my acl), but did not feel immediate pain. Walking up to get my skis something felt very wrong and assumed ligament damage immediately. I skied down to the base area after putting my skis on and by the time I got to the bottom I could barely move my leg. Limped my way to the clinic with assistance from a friend and some ski poles and was diagnosed after xray with the TPF and presumed ACL, MCL, Menisucs. My ortho later had similar fears after doing all the stability tests with my knee and said that he was positive I damaged my MCL and 70% sure I tore my ACL. Surprisingly, the MRI showed all ligaments intact, with the only damage being the TPF and meniscal contusion.
In the first few days, pain was unbearable and range of motion was almost zero. 8/10 pain for about 36 hours straight... I opted for advil because I'm dumb and tough. After 5 weeks, I had gained about 80% of my ROM and pain was minimal hanging around the house, occasionally reaching a 3-4/10 if I was resting it in one position for too long. At that point I got more xrays and my ortho was satisfied with the progress of my healing, so we moved to 25% weight bearing, increasing to 50% as tolerated. Walking with crutches felt good. Once I got my leg moving, things seemed to progress rapidly, at least for about 2 weeks and then things plateaued a bit.
A week and a half ago I decided I felt good enough to get out to a concert. I sat the whole show, but at the end of the night my knee was so sore from all the jostling and travelling that I was sure I had bit off more than I could chew and set myself back.
Last week on 4/20 I had my next ortho follow up and round of xrays. Ortho to my surprise said the fracture was no longer recognizable on the xray and approved me to move to full weight bearing as tolerated. I was told to ease into it and have a crutch (or two) close by in case I needed to back off. I was also allowed to ditch my knee brace. 5 days later and I am once again improving quite quickly. At the end of each day, my injured knee has been a little sore with the increased weight bearing, but each day that I have used it that end of day soreness has diminished. I am still very much walking with a limp, and using the crutches for balance and confidence when I'm out of the house. Today I went properly up and down some stairs while holding tight to the railing to reduce some weight with no pain.
I've been doing PT all throughout this process which I think has helped immensely. My quad atrophied shockingly quickly in those first 2 weeks where I wasn't able to move it at all. But with PT the atrophy stopped, and now I've even gained some of that quad muscle back. I am having occasional tracking issues with my patella, which my PT does not seem to be concerned about. The problems with tracking seem to be fewer and farther between as I've been progressing and getting stronger, so I trust him on that.
My Ortho seems to think I will be able to return to light athletic activity in June, and more aggressive athletic activity in July. The snow will be around in august in Tahoe, so I'm in no rush.
I'll try to give another update in June. I had a hard time trying to find stories about less severe tibial plateau fractures and long term outcomes, so I'm hoping my story will help encourage some folks. It seemed like my knee was beyond f$%&ed when I first did my injury and the lingering pain was shocking and discouraging. It feels good now knowing the progress I've made.
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