I had 4 of them back in 2012 and my knee is still swollen and I've always had pain in it. . .yesterday I didn't do anything different but am unable to straighten it to the point of walking normal (I've never had the ability to be able to get it straight before but enough to walk with a very small limp only) It is swollen twice as much as usual which is saying a lot because it is always swollen anyway. LOL. RICE isn't working, I would feel silly going in for an old injury that I never truly 're-injured'...any other suggestions to help?! I'm desperate.
*I'm 26 and have had 1 microfracture surgery, 2 scar tissue removals, and 1 straight manipulation
I forgot to tell why I thought going to the doctor was silly. The ortho I had was very hard on me. Told me to deal with the pain and that it is always going to hurt (he said this at the very last appointment I had with him) Also yelled at me in the OR saying he will never do another surgery until I am old enough for a knee replacement. (the insurance won't pay for me to have one....word for word the doc said they rather pay for a 79 year old woman to have one that probably won't make it out of surgery instead of a young woman because they dont' want to pay for a 2nd replacement when I will need it since they don't last forever) He is blunt as you can see. lol. He was always angry at me saying it was my fault I wasn't working it hard enough and the PT and nurses said its because they tend to view it as 'their knee' and when it isn't going according to the book, they get angry. To the piont he would yell at the nurses, patients, etc. He said there was nothing he could do about it other than OTC pain relievers so I gave up. I didn't try a new doctor because I thought having it hurt was apart of life. But the inability to straighten it got SO intense yesterday I couldn't walk at all. And I knew it had to be bad for my knee / hips / body. I will have to just look for another doc and go in. I really didn't think about that but I needed to hear that me NOT going in is the silly part. :)
I agree that going back to the condescending doctor you've been seeing is useless.
You should go to a NEW doctor.
I'm sorry, but NOT going to the doctor is the silly thing.
I agree with others, you are doing more damage not going. You are actually doing damage to the rest of your body. Our bodies are uniquely inter-twined, and start picking up the slack for other parts (like people who lose their hearing, some other sense picks up).
Go to the doctor.
swelling is telling you something is wrong.
Pain is telling you something is wrong.
Doesn't sound like your original injury never healed properly. I would go get an MRI done and figure out what's going on with your knee...
I've had so many surgeries on my right knee...that the doctor said the next one will be a replacement. I'm waiting on that one...
If you have NEVER had the ability to have full ROM of your leg? You MUST go get it checked out. You are doing more damage to your knee and the rest of your body by doing NOTHING....your hips are getting tweaked for adjusting to a limp-gate (you gate is your walking pattern).
DO NOT feel silly. GO TO THE DOCTOR!!!!
I think you need a new doctor who is willing to help you. While it's unusual for someone your age to need knee replacement surgery there's no reason you need to live with pain and discomfort.
Best peace of advice? Realize that going to the doctor now is not silly. NOT going to the doctor IS silly.
Honestly, you should have gone to the doctor a long time ago, but the past is the past and the best thing you can do is make an appointment first thing Monday morning.
Keep in mind that lots of people have to go to the doctor because a muscle is aching or a joint is hurting and there never was an injury to begin with. So don't focus on the how, just let them know what your knee is doing right now.
I don't want it to sound like I'm scolding you. I speak from experience. I am prone to kidney stones. I should be seeing my doctor every year so that he can order an x-ray and make sure I'm still stone free. Well, I kept meaning to make an appointment and just never got around to it. (I do see my primary doctor and my OB/GYN anually ... just haven't been good about the urologist. It's been 2 1/2 years, and I just landed myself in the hospital with one very big stone (11 mm), one smaller stone (6 mm) and a kidney infection. I was released from by 5 day stay in the hospital 4 days ago. I still feel like I was hit by a truck. I'm not sore, just extremely weak. Nevertheless, kids don't wait for Mommy to feel better, and I must return to work on Monday.
My point is, the situation will only get worse, not better, until you see a doctor. By trying to ignore pain, discomfort, swelling, etc, you're only making the injury worse.
Call your doctor Monday morning! And next time, don't let your pride (or your busy life) keep you from doing the smart thing - seeing your doctor when something isn't right and/or isn't getting better.
you've had four knee injuries in a year, but you assume you haven't re-injured them despite pain and swelling?
this does not compute.
i have various older relatives who've had their knees replaced. sometimes the recovery has taken up to a year, but they're all rockin' it now. knees are bastards, but they're fixable.
both of my knees are hinky, but i strap on my braces and go. they carried me 26 miles 2 days ago. one started twinge-ing hard, so i walked until it quit. i've found that lunges and squats are Very Bad Things for me to do, so i don't do them. no more than an hour on the elliptical or they talk back.
don't let one intimidating doctor affect your quality of life.
khairete
S.
And going to the doctor is silly because home remedies have worked out so well for you.
Call your doctor and make an appointment. There is nothing silly about it.
I have a lot of good friends who are very sporty and who have had serious knee injuries and surgeries in their 20s and 30s. Most of them due to skiing, running, biking, or accidents. So, I do not think it is uncommon. They all were back doing their various sports after healing from their surgery and doing their physical therapy. First, find a totally different doctor. All of these friends had nice, friendly doctors. You should take your business elsewhere. Besides surgery talk to your doctor about physical therapy and trying that first. You definitely do not have to live in pain like this. GO to a DIFFERENT DOCTOR! :)
It's probably the accumulated effect of the inflammation from prior injuries as well as the surgeries. They took some of the scar tissue out but certainly they weren't going to get it all out. The body's response to trauma is inflammation, and because there are so many other causes of it, it can really build up. I do a lot of nutritional work with people with various forms of inflammation, and I work with a lot of athletes who have ankle, knee and shoulder injuries in particular. They do build up over time, and even though they seem to be healed, they aren't. RICE works for an acute injury but not a chronic one.
There is a heavily researched natural peptide that has phenomenal anti-inflammatory effects and which can actually do some repairs in damaged cells. There's also a functional formula which increases blood flow and can grow cartilage in joints as long as some cartilage is there to begin with. Either or both could help you but I'd have to know more to advise you. Both products are metabolized as food so there is no drug interaction and you can take as much as you want. We see the best results with chronic problems if people take it all the time (as you would a vitamin) and then up the amount if the event of an injury. It's a very exciting development in food science and is very heavily researched, with multiple benefits and zero side effects. It's a great alternative to taking drugs which are going to treat the symptom only, and which have limitations in dosage as well as potential side effects. I think you would benefit from it (although it's not an overnight fix) if you're open to a little education about this. I work extensively with athletes and coaches as well as the scientists who developed it, and we've seen remarkable results.
I don't know how old you are but I've been to this by my ortho--knee pain/injuries are often cumulative. The connective tissue just thins and weakens over time, often causing issue in a woman's 40s or 50s.
You probably should call your doc.
Ibuprofen & ice.
Good luck!
Have you called your insurance to know for sure they won't cover it?
I added lunges to my exercise routine. After a few days my knees were really hurting so I stopped. Months later my knee swelled so much my jeans didn't fit. Long story short....I had an MRI...it showed a piece of cartilage floating around in my knee. My doctor suspected it had finally ripped off and was causing the swelling and knee pain. I was in physical therapy for months. My quadriceps muscle had completely shut down.
You really need to go to the doctors and find out what is going on. Feel better.
You have free floating and/or torn cartilage that is getting stuck between your bones. Your knee can't straighten because to do so would stretch your muscles and ligaments. I mean you can straighten it but the pain is enough that your body will say hell no!
I should know this was always the primary symptom each time I had to get my knee scoped.
You need a new orthopedic surgeon! I left mine when he said he would do a knee replacement next time I needed a scope, yeah, no, you don't say that to a 32 year old based on nothing other than I have little cartilage left. I would much rather have someone diagnose on the symptoms presented and not their ability to see the future.
Oh and I am 46 now and my current orthopedic surgeon says he does not see me needing knee replacements for a very long time is this is after I managed to tear my ACL, I am not graceful in any sense of the word! Well at least I fall a lot. So we are talking four scopes and an ACL replacement and he is talking 25 years out.
Oh, this would probably be good information for you. My first scope was when I was 18, no injury at all, just woke up one morning and couldn't straighten my knee, couldn't really walk on it because when I tried it would still want to straighten and I would fall down. They did an MRI and you could see the debris that was trapped between the bones. I had it scoped and went skiing four days later.
