Thread: My knee feels funny

Ok maggot docs, what might be up with my knee? 3 weeks ago I was in the half pipe and I heard/felt a pop in the left knee when the leg was at full extension coming down the wall and/or near the transition. I don't think I was twisting and I didn't fall. Just felt the pop and had some pretty good pain in the knee. I stopped the run and side slipped down to the bottom of the pipe. After a few minutes the pain went away and I skied down and took a break. I skied the rest of the monring and did RICE in the afternoon. I skied the next day and after that it swelled up pretty good.

I've taken it easy but skied 3 days this past weekend. One time after a small drop, I landed with full extension and it hurt so bad I had to sit down for a few minutes before I wanted to move again. Then after that the knee felt OK and I was even able to ski some zipperline bumps.

I've been to the health care provider a few times and they can't say what is wrong. The x-rays looks OK and they tell me my knee looks pretty healthy. They can't get me in to see and ortho doc for another 3 weeks. (I'm really regretting staying with this insurance carrier this year. ) They are starting to rule out the ACL since I still have good stability and nothing really moves when they do the manipulation.

So, what would cause my knee to feel wierd, hurt at full extension (I get about 170 deg ROM, the last 10 is hard), still allow me to ski bumps, but give some good pain every now and then when I step/land on it when it is at full extension?

tough to tell from the description.

Where is the pain located?

Where was the swelling?

pain with deep squatting (catcher style)?

The pain is not in a specific location, if anything its localized to the bottom half of the knee.

The majority of the swelling was the upper outside, it seem to be swollen there today.

No pain with deep squatting. No pain riding the exercise bike. No pain with leg lifts, I just can't bring the leg all the way up. No problem doing one leg step ups on a box, but when stepping down on the left leg with it extended can generate some pain.

The major sensation is the knee feels really tight and warm. (slow pitch...)

It's wierd and doesn't feel right.

tough to tell without being able to see it. Possible that you could have injured the tendon or mabe the underside of the patella.

For now treat the symptom. Ice after activity, and avoid things that irritate it/take it easy for alittle while. then see what the ortho says.

Good luck.

Thanks Vin, I've got a doc appt in a little while and hope they can figure it out then. BTW, what could have been damaged if I did some knee hyperextension?

structures you can injure with a hyperextension force are:

ACL
meniscus (H-extension and rotation actually)
hamnstring tendons
posterior joint capsule
PCL
patellar retinaculum (forcefull quad contraction)

so you see there are to many posibble for a more accurate assessment from here.

Good luck with it.

I went in for PT yesterday, (have still not seen an ortho doc), and the he gave me some good news. It appears that I haven't torn anthing, my knee is very stable. It looks like I sprained the knee. I'm having trouble getting the leg to full extension, so he worked striaghtening out the knee. He put a good hurt on me and the knee is feeling better. I will keep the ortho visit and in the meantime keep working with PT to get the knee loosened up.

Thanks Vin for the input.

After 3 months my knee was still feeling funny and I went in for an MRI. It turns out that I have a full tear of the ACL, partial tear of PCL and some partial meniscus damage. I'm going in tomorrow to sit down with the doc and learn about my options. Is this type of injury really bad? I looked in Shoe's thread and almost booted on the desk. Is this type of procedure in the cards?

At least I've got 38 days in so far...

Man, sorry to hear this. I would guess that you will likely need some kind of surgery to fix some of those things. Out of all of them the PCL is the least worrisome. Prolly won't need to do anything with that. But the ACL and the menisci are differnt. It is likely that you'll need to have them fixed to be able to resume your "normal" level of function. There are a few individulas that can function at a high level of cutting/twisting/turing types of activities without their ACL but that %age is small. your doc will give you all of the info you need. But feel free to ask questions here too. All to many of us have info you can draw from. Good luck.

Best O luck my brotha. Although we have fun in Gimp Central...we're not looking to acquire any more bodies.

I had a similar pop and pain and the result was the knee cap (patella).
Do not take this lightly...IT'S YOUR KNEE

Sorry to hear the results - Shoe's experience could likely be in your future as well, unless you opt out of surgery. Without an ACL,however, you could do far more permanent and severe damage to the meniscus, and could be limited in your future activities.

Best of luck, and welcome to the club

Just saw this for the first time and after reading the frist post I thought it was ACL...bummer it turned out that way. I'm 8 days post op if you have any questions.

Thanks for all the supporting words, I've found the info in this forum great for bringing me up to speed on my injury and my options.

I'm going in tomorrow to get the knee fixed up. The doc will be doing the hammy upgrade for my ACL. I'm pretty freaked, but it needs to be done. 7 months post op will put me at Dec 1 and I should be able to get back at it. In the mean time, I look forward to reading about everyones adventures in the 2nd season and getting on my bike this summer to recover and get stronger.
See you all on the other side...

Best of luck!

Good luck!

Reading through your original posts, I was remembering how the first several docs who felt my first ACL all said - "It's nothing but a sprain, take motrin and don't worry about it". (and well yeah, technically a sprain is a torn ligament which can be a little torn or completely torn - they just didn't know it was anything serious...) Particularly if you have strong legs and it's swollen - it doesn't move much and I think you really have to know what you're looking for to feel that the ACL is missing then.

Good luck with the surgery - sorry you have to go through it, but stay positive and work hard and you'll be in great shape for next year.

Talk about a mis-diagnosis. You must have pretty tight muscles around the knee to keep it in place. Keep up with that PT and you'll probably hit it before Dec 1st.

B)

Well, things could have gone better and they could have been alot worse.

I had the surgery May 3, used the EBI cold therapy iceman machine to keep the swelling down and it worked great. My instructions were to get back to weight bearing ASAP. 5 days post op I was walking round w/o crutches and feeling good. At 7 days was the first doc post op visit. The doc said the repair went well. I only had a torn ACL, the meniscus and cartilage were fine. He said other than the ACL, the knee looks like the knee of an 18 yo. Being almost 2.5 times that age, I am pretty pumped at the news.

During the visit I mentioned my pain in the lower calf, my calf was rock hard and the knee/hammy pain felt good compared to the calf. He checked it out, and mentioned a possible bold clot in the calf. The blood test showed the same thing and I ended up getting an ultrasound on the calf, which confirmed a that I has a superficial clot in the calf. The prescribed treatment is to wrap the calf in an ace bandage and take 1 asprin a day to thin the blood. Since it was below the knee this is all they do, if the pain gets behind the knee or higher in the leg I need to contact them asap. They said I should also be on the look out for chest pain and shortness of breath as this could mean another clot in

The next day I hit PT, they were amazed at my range of motion and use of the leg, no crutches, no brace, etc. I've got my list of exercises to do daily so I can get this leg mending.

This past Thursday I woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in the lower left chest. It felt like someone put an ice pick in me. I didn’t have any trouble breathing so I just shrugged it off as sleeping in a bad position. I did the work thing Friday and felt the same pain Friday night. At this point I realized it was more than a muscle pain. After talking to the RN on the phone Saturday morning, she convinced me to head to the ER. There a cat scan confirmed that I have a small blood clot (pulmonary emblomism) in my lower left lung. I had the joy of an over night stay with forced bed rest in the hospital while they get blood thinning medication in my system.

I’m now home and taking lovenox and cumiden. With the lovenox, I have the enjoyment of giving myself shots in the stomach for 3-6 days until the blood clotting measurement gets into the correct range. I will also be on cumiden for 6 months, then I should get back to normal.

I’m glad to be back on the road to recovery, I hope there are no more side roads for me. My wife was pretty freaked out at this whole blood clot thing. I guess it could have turned out a lot worse.

Well, that’s my story, a little different take on the first few weeks of post op ACL surgery. Enjoy your health kids, I’m never taking mine for granted again.

Damn...that sucks. Good to hear that you are doing beter.

Wow, that was one rocky road. Glad to see that you're on track again though. Good luck with the recovery and keep that aspirin going!

B)

You make the rest of us look like we've got it easy! Glad to hear you caught the clots in time and that you're on track not to have any more! Best of luck on recovery, and keep us posted

Kellie

holy shit dude!

kick it's ass sea bass!

DVT's (deep vein thrombosis) are scary. Glad they caught it. Good luck mang.