Has anyone ever had knee problems ?
 

OK, maybe this is something weird to ask, but for the last 10 days I have been dealing with an injury that my daughter Lauren got while jumping on a trampoline. Yesterday she got an MRI and today we went to the Ortho doctor. The results, not good. She has to have surgery. This is what the MRI results said.

Examination demonstrates extensive edema noted within the lateral femoral condyle the posterior tibial plateau and also edema noted within the proximal fibular head although no definite fracture lines are not seen. There is a lesser degree of edema noted within the medial femoral condyle. There is some mild increased signal intensity within the femoral attachment of the fibular collateral ligament consistent with partial tear: in addition there may be some increased signal intensity within the popliteus tendon at its femoral attachment.

There is a large displaced radial tear of the posterior horn/root of the lateral meniscus. In addition there is increased signal intensity within the posterior horn of the medial meniscus at its posterior meniscal capsular attachment consistent with peripheral meniscal capsular region tear. The PCL is intact. The ACL however demonstrates complete disruption with difficulty identifying any fibers. There is a large associated joint effusion.

Impression:
1. Complete ACL disruption
2. There is associated extensive bone bruising within the lateral femoral condyle, the lateral tibial plateau, fibular head and to a lesser degree the medial femoral condyle without definite fracture lines seen.
3. There is a large displaced radial type tear of the posterior horn/root region of the lateral meniscus.
4. There is a vertical meniscal capsular tear in the posterior horn medial meniscus.
5. Probably partial strain or tear of the fibular collateral ligament and popliteus tendons at the femoral attachment.

From what the doctor said today, her knee is in pretty rough shape. He said her injury is what most pro football players have. I have an appointment with a surgeon on Wednesday morning. I just wondered if anyone has ever had this type of injury, or has knowledge of what I need to make sure is done for my daughter.

Thank you.

No knee injury for me so Im of no help.

Lauren kept telling me her knee felt "loose". Now I know why, half her tendons are torn and not connected.

I hope they get her fixed up real soon .

Sorry to hear about Lauren. A friends daughter has had a simular surgery, help her and then she tore it again. You have to give it enough time to heal. Will require physical therapy to strengthen it.

I know Ray. This is going to be a long, slow process. And for Lauren I don't think that it has sunk in how much time and effort this is going to take to get her better. We were going to plan a trip next month, but now everything is on hold til we find out when she will have her surgery.

Aren't children wonderful ???? I did say that with a smile on my face.

Yes they are. They are our pride and joy no matter what.

Lynda had a similar injury, minus bruising of the bone. She tore the meniscus, don't recall which one and blew out her ACL. They operated to clean up the meniscus but did not repair the ACL. She was considerably older than Lauren when this happened. They said if she was younger or active in sports they would recommend repairing the ACL. Her knee would buckle on occasion because the ACL was gone. She road a stationary bike, walked on a treadmill and did other exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee. She hasn't had a problem with that knee for years now, of course she has torn the meniscus in the other knee twice now.

The meniscus repair can be relatively minor depending on the amount of damage. Unfortunately an MRI can't tell you how much damage was done, they have to go in and look. Usually they go in and trim off the torn piece and smooth it out. Some pain but you can be back up and around in a day or two, followed with some therapy. Building up the muscles around the knee keeps it stable which helps to distribute the weight evenly between the lateral and medial meniscus. That's what those hinged knee braces do, keep the knee straight so one meniscus is not bearing all the weight.

The ACL is a different issue. The ACL is 2 ligaments, like an X. There's also the PCL. Together they pull the knee joint together and help stabilize it. With a torn ACL the joint can be sloppy and not operate smoothly. Typically they remove a portion of the patella ligaments to rebuild the ACL. Because of her young age I'm sure they'll want to repair it. The recovery time for that is much longer, up to 6 months with lots of therapy. Fortunately she is young and should recover quicker than an older person.

I'm sure the surgeon can give you a much better explanation of what's wrong and what they need to do. Hope all goes well, she'll need to work hard, lot's of therapy but should be good as new this summer.

Best of luck to Lauren.

Hank, thank you so much for your explanation. From what I remember from the doctors visit she is pretty much going to have everything that you said. I will know more when we see the surgeon on Wed. I saw the pics from the MRI, actually took some pretty good ones with my phone, they did not look pretty. I was standing in the doctors office looking at a drawing of a healthy knee and then at the MRI pics. It wasn't pretty. My oldest daughter is dating a former football player who told me that the physical therapy is probably the most important part of the recovery. But, before I get too worked up I should wait to see the surgeon. Just keeping positive thoughts. Again, thank you for your explanation.

Nancy, write down all the questions you think of for the surgeon. You tend to forget once you get in the Dr's office. Your daughter's boyfriend is right about the therapy, that's true for any ortho surgery. She'll need to strengthen the muscles around the knee to stabilize it and protect it from further injury.

It's kind of scary but she's young and hopefully will recover with no long term affects. I was already old when I fractured my pelvis in 3 places. It took a good 6 months before all the pain was gone. I did the therapy and remained as active as I could. I have zero affects from it now. Hope all goes well for her.

Tomorrow morning is the appt with the surgeon. My biggest concern is that Lauren is a big girl. She is 15 and is already 5'9" and heavy. Up until she hurt her knee we had been working on getting her more physically fit, hence the trampoline. Low impact, great workout. Look where that got us. lol

Thanks for all the advice Hank.

I tore my ACL almost a year ago playing basketball at 32 yrs old (valentines day last yr) Freak accident came down after a layup and it buckled. Other than that very healthy.

Had surgery April 30th. I would say it is getting back to normal after 8 months post op. I am rehabbing to return to softball this spring.

My best tip is to stick with therapy and work it out. Otherwise it will not get better and take longer to heal


Ryan

Welcome to the site Ryan. Maybe you could tell us about yourself and your car in the Introductions forum.

Welcome Ryan ,glad youre with us here .

Thank you Ryan.

We saw the surgeon this morning. After the examination it was determined that before surgery can be done Lauren must go thru physical therapy to "loosen" up her knee. She is unable to completely straighten her leg, which, according to the surgeon is not a good place for him to start. The muscles and ligaments must be able to move so that when he makes repairs she will have full range of motion.

So for 3 days a week, for the next 4 weeks, she will be having an hour a day therapy. We were also told that she should be able to completely walk on her leg, using the knee brace. Now this is the first I heard of this, or I would have been pushing her to walk, I was afraid she would do more damage using it more.

Lauren has been a drama queen so far, we are all kinda afraid of what is going to happen once she starts therapy. I am not going to be anywhere near her when she has therapy.

She is tough like her mom ,she will be fine ,just keep out of her reach and line of fire .

2 days post op they had me riding a bike. I couldn't go all the way around but it really loosened things up.

Have her stock with the therapy. I am married to a P.T. and she wouldn't baby me

Thanks for the welcome! I will make a post over in the intro section


Ryan

You don't need an ACL to walk, like I said Lynda blew hers out over 10 years ago. The torn meniscus will only cause a problem if there is a tear that left a small flap. If it catches it can fold over and basically lock up the knee.

Don't hang around for the therapy, let the therapist push her to do the work. You may want to ask him how she's doing. If she has the will she'll be fine. Make sure she understands that. It's up to her how this all turns out.

Did they give her a cortisone shot or suggest ibuprofen to bring the swelling down?

I didn't plan to be around for the therapy, I know better than that. The doctor suggested Motrin and Tylenol, alternating them. She can take the tylenol up until 2 weeks before her surgery.

So we went to physical therapy today. I went with Lauren into the back while the therapist did her evaluation. It was hard because Lauren was not taking it seriously. That was until she saw how much less her right knee was able to bend than her left knee. It was a big difference.

After the therapist worked with her it was amazing how much more she was able to move. I am just going to have to keep on her to do it everyday, 3x's a day.

So yesterday we saw the Therapist for the 4th time. She informed us that when she talked to the insurance company she found out that Lauren has a limited amount of physical therapy hours and she suggested that we drop Lauren down to 1 time a week prior to surgery. She has given Lauren exercises that she has to do 3x's a day, and to do exercises on the treadmill. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will still make progress everyday. The therapist also told us that she wants Lauren to start walking with one crutch. I don't know about one crutch when she is at school, at least not this week. But I told her that I am going to contact the school and tell them that she cannot use the wheel chair anymore unless something major happens.

It sux that insurance rules our lives so completely these days ,I hope she gets better soon.

Lauren had her surgery today. The surgeon said it went as expected, no surprises. What a relief. The only problem was that she was really, really sick to her stomach after the surgery and she spent 4 hours in recovery. She was feeling better so it was time to go. But on the way home she threw up in the van, luckily I keep trash bags in the van. She is in bed now, hopefully the pain pump they have in her leg, will let her get some rest tonight. I gave her the oral pain pill too and I am hoping that I can get some sleep.

Oh...but wait....David and Jacob are leaving for Tennessee at 4am and guess who has to get up and make sure they have everything. I already packed everything into the van for them tonight, but I will be up making sure they are set.

What a day !!!! I just hope that Lauren isn't in too much pain tomorrow.

Im glad her surgery went as planned ,now maybe she can heal and be good as new .Give her my best and tell the boys to be careful and have fun.

Wow, seems like it took forever for her to get that surgery. Wishing her a speedy recovery.

I agree, wishing her a speedy recovery.

It did take a while for her surgery. Part of the reason was the surgeon we wanted to do the surgery was out of town for a week. The other part was that we wanted Lauren to have as much mobility with her knee as possible.

Today Lauren got out of bed about 4am and has been on the couch, with her leg elevated on a footstool. She has been up a couple of times, but she is starting to feel the pain. I have been only giving her one pain pill at a time, but I may give her two if she needs it. I just want to really monitor what she takes for pain.

Just remind her that pain is weakness leaving the body. ;)

I will. I think that she is starting to really feel the pain. She has requested pain pills pretty close to every 4 1/2 hours. She asked to sleep on the couch tonight, but if she does she will be in a sitting position. I think it would be better for her to sleep laying down in her bed, better for circulation in her leg.

Different kind of pain, but I shattered me femur in a car accident a little over 17 years ago. They had me on morphine at first, then weened me off of it quickly. They sent me home with Demerol, it tied my stomach in knots so badly - I quickly learned to do without it. To this day, I resent taking any kinds of pills. After nearly two days without any sleep recently, I broke down and went to an urgent care center. They had me pick up a prescription for my sinus headaches. The kicker - there's caffeine in them! So I still am having trouble getting sleep despite my headaches mostly being gone. Damn that Murphy's law!

I'm sure she is tired of hearing it, but water... lots of water. As much as she can stand to drink. It will help with the pain, and keep her kidneys flushed of the meds.

Don't make her wait too long for pain medication. If the pain get's too bad then one pill may not do the job. Need to get the pain under control and try to manage from there. Most hospitals and Drs now understand that you don't need to suffer and you don't heal as fast if you're in a lot of pain. It's a balancing act, don't want to take too much but need to keep it under control. Did they recommend icing her knee?

All the best to Lauren.

Hank, I ask her all day long how she is doing. She tells me that she is OK. I ask her what her pain level is, she has been at a 3 or 4.

That was until today. Today, mean ole mom, made her take her 1st shower since her surgery. Let me tell you it was a lot of work. We don't have a walk in shower, our shower is in our tub. So we had to take her leg splint off, she sat on the side of the tub and put her good leg in, then I took a towel under her leg and helped her lift it over the side of the tub. What used to be a 20 minute shower turned into almost an hour.

Lauren also had her 1st physical therapy session today. The surgeon has no protocol for her therapy so her therapist is just going by what most doctors want. The leg brace is locked in the straight position, but the discharge papers say that she should start working on her range of motion before seeing the doctor on the 15th of April. I was surprised how much she was able to move her leg, it may not have been a lot, but it was some. And when the therapist asked her what her pain level was, she said maybe a 5 or 6 and it was tolerable. I did make sure that she took a pain pill before therapy. I know that now that she will be moving it more, her pain level is going to increase. I am just glad that she is trying, she understands how important it is for her to do what she is told.

How is Lauren doing with her recovery ,tell her and everyone else hello from Mrs Flash and I .

Bttt.............................................. ...

Thanks everyone for your help and concern in the ongoing saga with Lauren's knee. lol Well she has been making pretty good progress. Two weeks ago she saw the surgeon and he wanted her to not use any brace at all. We discussed this with her physical therapist, and because Lauren has flights of stairs at school and she goes up and down the stairs at least 4 times a day, it was decided that she use the smaller brace to give her support.

Lauren's biggest problem is that she walks on her toes. Now when it comes to her bending her knee she is doing really well, but when it comes to straightening her leg, she has work to do. I have asked her friends to help me by reminding her to walk "heal to toe" while she is at school. Her friends can be really obnoxious and are loving telling her what to do.

Glad to hear she is doing well .