Question:
chronic patella/knee pain
Can anyone help me? I've been experiencing chronic knee pain for nine years and I'm only 24 years old.
When I was 16 I subluxed my knee cap, several times. I was able to pop it back into place by straightening my leg. I didn't think much of it, because while the pain was excruciating for a few moments, it quickly went away with no residual symptoms.
When I was 19 it started doing it again and at that point scar tissue began to build up around it and the kneecap "healed" several millimeters away from where it was supposed to be. I got x-rays several times over the next 8 months and progressively watched it move further and further from center.
Finally surgery became a necessity after several months of physical therapy which my doctor told me, with my particular condition, was probably pointless, but well, they had to try. This doctor also diagnosed the main cause of the problem, the outside bone in my knee is shorter than it's supposed to be so it doesn't do it's job properly of keeping my patella where it's supposed to be.
When I was 21 I was playing a game of ice hockey and got checked. I went down with a sprained LCL on the same knee, although I was so used to knee pain it took me almost a week to realize that there was a new "something wrong."
That summer I went to see a doctor who said there was nothing he could do for the now nearly constant chronic pain I was experiencing. He told me to stay away from ellipticals, treadmills, sports, etc. As a very active person, this was devastating.
So I made a deal with my body, I would give it a rest. I would give it a year. No sports, just doing the physical exercises I had been taught in round after round of PT.
Two years later, I went back to sports. And the pain came back.
So what can I do? I'm about 25 years away from a TKR (and the pain isn't that bad) I just want to be able to walk up a flight of steps without that sort of feeling like tibia has dislocated (a common side effect apparently of a knee cap sliding out of place) and being able to go back to sports again would be really nice!
Can someone help me, please?
Asked by pumpsky - 0 answers - 2 years 10 weeks ago
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