Some of my general reflections on knee issues would be:
Include a good PT with any surgeon consultation for an injury. Go to the best sport surgeon and PT that you can.
MRI can fail to show damage. The pictures are only as good as the person reading them. I have had them miss on two occasions for meniscus tears.
Talk to a good therapy specialist to avoid the Lateral Release, I would not have it done again.
Steady grinding is often a result of dislocation, sublux, and indicates skeletal cartilage wear in the kneecap and femoral grove. Sudden popping is usually a torn meniscus or ruptured capsule with fluid build up.
If your symptoms persist or rehabilitation stalls look for pre-existing conditions such as nerve impingement and such.
Youth and aggression will compensate for only so long.
You can never do too much posterior chain work after a knee surgery. Doing it prior may eliminate the latter.
Don?t come to rely on open chain work like knee extensions too much.
Be nice to your significant other before surgery. Seriously.
Just have to say that this is an awesome thread, especially on a slow teaching day where I’m just filtering through old curriculum… Big fun.
Anyway,
I had my left ACL reconstructed just over two years ago. (middle third of patellar tendon harvested to replace completely torn ACL)
Still have problems with it such as edema and occasional pain, kinda just dealing with it since I’m sick of taking NSAIDS and so forth. This thread seems to be the “one stop shop” for any and all things knee, good stuff.
I’ve had knee pain for years as I spent 20 plus years pretty much neglecting stretching. I played basketball in college and had continued to play (up 'til the last ~8 months of my life) post collegiate ball and have been squatting, DLing etc for many years. I recently went to the doc to see if there was any damage (torn ACL or WHATEVER/ANYTHING).
He said the pain is there b/c of my VERY tight quads/hip flexors/hamstrings. Plus my tendon on the posterior side of my knee could be inflamed-causing more pain. I’ve been “dedicated” w/ my stretching for the last year or so, but I don’t think this has been enuf time to reverse the lack of stretching for ALL those years.
My question is this, if I continue stretching and really improve my ROM, do you think it is possible for my knee pain to diminish? (since there seems to be no structural damage) Or do you think since I went for soooo loooong w/out stretching, is there a good chance I will ALWAYS experience knee pain when playing b-ball, squatting etc.?
It hurts below the kneecap. I’m 33 and 6’3". Currently I’m using one of Chad’s programs:Total Body Training. Actually one day I was doing sprints and it started hurting. I shrugged off the pain and continued sprinting and squatting (ATG). No I cannot sprint, and my squats are only parallel to ground.
[quote]Mike Robertson wrote:
Now we’re getting somewhere!
When you say front of the knee, do you mean above or below the kneecap?
What’s your age?
What does your CURRENT training program look like?
Can you remember a specific incident that led to the injury, or has it been gradually getting worse?
Sorry for more questions, but we’ll figure it out!
Stay strong
MR
wwatts11 wrote:
It hurts at the front of the knee. My knee tends to click as yours do. Any bending beyond 45 degrees provokes the pain. Walking and standing does not hurt. Performing sprints is very painful. As I mentioned, even sitting causes a pain that is only relieved by stretching out the legs.
I primarily follow any quad exercise with a hip or hamstring exercise, and vice versa. I tend to stretch my hips flexors more than my quads because any bending of the knee involved in stretching the quads causes pain.
I’ve had pain in both of my knees for over a year now. It hurts while squatting and even while sitting in the same position for a long time. I’ve just started taking chondroitin about a month ago, but so far the pain hasn’t ceased. I do need to start icing them though. Any information you could provide would be very helpful.
[quote]Fonebone wrote:
wtagye wrote:
It does sound somewhat similar, but to be honest I hope that’s not what I’m facing. Were you and your docs able to pinpoint a cause of your meniscus damage? It sounds like something that could be impact-related, which is not an issue for me. What kind of recovery timeframe are you looking at? What happened to your brother in law after he lost half of his meniscus?
I thought I would try some of Mike’s stretches and foam rolling to see if that helps. If not then it will be alphabet soup time (ART and MRI).
Thanks for the reply.
fonebone[/quote]
I am not sure when the tear occured, I have just noticed a constant decrease in the range of motion I had in my knee over the last few years. I think that it was minor and then just kept tearing as I continued to play sports and lift. My doctor nailed it pretty much the first time I saw him about 2 years ago and just said my options were surgery or deal with it. I delt with it until a few weeks ago when I saw him again to see if stretches would increase my ROM. He answer was not really and gave me the same options.
I decided to go with surgery on friday of last week. My recovery is going to suck. Usually the fix is just shaving off the torn flap and you are back on your feet within a few days. My tear was in a region that gets some blood flow so they decided to repair (stitch) the tear instead. It is better in the long run but I am on crutches w/ some weight bearing for the next 6 weeks and physical therapy. I guess when they put in the stitches it is more invasive and takes much longer to heal.
My brother in law has done very well since his surgery. He was in way worse shape than I was and now has full ROM in his knee. The only down fall is that it has affected the level of activity that he is willing to do. The doctor basically told him that he would need a knee replacement at some point and the less impact he has on his knees the further down the road the replacement will come, compounding this is that knee replacements have a shelf life and generally need to be redone at some point.
The best advice that I can give you is if you are hurt, the sooner you get it fixed the better off you will be. A small shaving off of a torn portion is better than loosing half of it. Good luck.
-Will
I was dreadfully single when I had my ACL repair. Right after I had it done I was couch-bound with the cooling machine and pretty pathetic AND my roomate at the time took off for the weekend, leaving me to hobble around on my own.
That very weekend, though, I was having a fence installed by a buddy and that Sunday was the first day I could shower. I remember sticking my head out the bathroom window half in the bag on percocet and saying “Hey Justin, dude, I need your help in here bro…”
I’m glad it was only he and I in the house because he had to help me get all the apparatus off of my leg as well as the “anti-clot” stockings. Jeez that was pathetic…
[quote]elevationgain wrote:
Dude you’re lucky to have your lady help you out…
I was dreadfully single when I had my ACL repair. Right after I had it done I was couch-bound with the cooling machine and pretty pathetic AND my roomate at the time took off for the weekend, leaving me to hobble around on my own.
That very weekend, though, I was having a fence installed by a buddy and that Sunday was the first day I could shower. I remember sticking my head out the bathroom window half in the bag on percocet and saying “Hey Justin, dude, I need your help in here bro…”
I’m glad it was only he and I in the house because he had to help me get all the apparatus off of my leg as well as the “anti-clot” stockings. Jeez that was pathetic…
GAINER[/quote]
You are absolutly correct about my being lucky. I feel for you not having any support the first few days out. The best advice I hav4e gotton so far is to tape coozies onto my crutches just to take whatever I am drinking around with me.
-Will
I had surgery to trim my medial meniscus a year ago, and I am still experiencing some problems. I cannot straighen my knee completely (I’m continuing my TKE’s as in Dave Tate’s Took Kit), my VMO and calf are still atrophied, my knee is still a bit swollen and hot, and I still experience Baker’s cysts on an intermittant basis. Rolling on the foam roller does relieve some of the pain but doesn’t take care of the rest of the issues. You mentioned VMO recruitment exercises. Would you elaborate. Any other suggestions? Thanks.
Best of luck w/the MRI. If it’s not a meniscus and everything is intact, I would look into getting some ART done to make sure all the scar tissue is broken up. Good luck!
Definitely have the PT work on the flexibility, and check into ART to have someone address the scar tissue. Sometimes things take a while to get back to normal; good luck!
The knee cracking could be chondromalacia patella, crepitus, or patella malalignment. Did you have this as a child? You mentioned you had had it for a while. Let me know!
Menisci can be damaged via a direct blow, but non-impact injuries are typically rotational in nature (e.g. plant and twist movements). The femur compresses against the menisci and rotates, which tears the cartilage.
If the clicking is just coming on, it could be crepitus, patellar malalignment, or even arthritic changes. Give us some more info and I’ll try to help!
Assuming there are no arthritic changes at the joint, you SHOULD be able to reverse what you’ve done. I would really focus on the stretching, as well as getting massage if possible. Joint preserving supps (EPA/DHA, glucosamine and chondrotin, etc.) should be a must for anyone reading this thread too.
As well, you’d be well served to get a ton of posterior chain work in your program. The bball alone is very quad dominant, so I would really strive to improve your posterior chain strength.
What’s the flexibility like in your hip flexors, quads, etc.? If these are very tight, perhaps they are altering the mechanics of the patello-femoral joint. Let me know.
Well if you have effusion in the joint, the VMO just isn’t going to fire correctly. Have you tried taking anything to get rid of the inflammation? I’m not a huge proponent of NSAID’s, but sometimes a brief bout can blast any remaining inflammation.
If it does get rid of it and it comes back, or if it remains, something else is causing the effusion. You could have re-torn part of the meniscus (or it was not taken care of properly in the first place), you could have a chondral lesion, or a host of other things. Regardless, I would try the NSAID’s for a while to see if that helps things, and if the effusion remains, you need to get it checked out.
Stay strong
MR
[quote]she-ra wrote:
I had surgery to trim my medial meniscus a year ago, and I am still experiencing some problems. I cannot straighen my knee completely (I’m continuing my TKE’s as in Dave Tate’s Took Kit), my VMO and calf are still atrophied, my knee is still a bit swollen and hot, and I still experience Baker’s cysts on an intermittant basis. Rolling on the foam roller does relieve some of the pain but doesn’t take care of the rest of the issues. You mentioned VMO recruitment exercises. Would you elaborate. Any other suggestions? Thanks.[/quote]
My quad flexibility was always great (heel to butt no stretch at all). Hip flexors not so much, they were my limiting factor when I was doing martial arts. And I definitely have anterior pelvic tilt. I am also slowly recovering from a lower ab strain from squatting, brought on by relative weakness in my lower abs (and squatting a PR when I shouldn’t have), which I think is due to that tilt.