[pct-l] Knee Injuries

[Campy]

Jim:

You didn't mention that your knew was painful because of swelling, but  
your RICE protocol suggests that swelling was present. I'm responding  
here to offer up my experiences and outcome if you may or may not  
relate generally to the signs and symptoms revealed herein.

I banged my knee about eight years ago, and the swelling resulted in  
pain which would have to be characterized as excruciating. This injury  
was not immediately seen by a doctor because I was several days away  
from returning home from Tahiti at the end of our vacation. Unwisely,  
I continued to walk with the terribly painful knee until I saw a  
doctor. By then, he could only prescribed medication and rest.

If you were not in pain of the excruciating kind - because of  
inflammation and edema, then you need read no further since your knee  
obviously suffered some other, different damage.

My affected knee healed adequately but not totally, and while washing  
the truck in Colorado during a time when I was supporting a CDT thru- 
hiker, I merely tapped the same knee on the side of the truck while up  
a couple rungs on a short ladder. The whole terrible pain and swelling  
routine immediately returned, and I asked to be driven to the hospital  
to have it examined. The orthopod who saw me took a large syringe and  
drew out a full barrel of fluid from beneath the kneecap, gave me a  
half dozen Vioxx pills, and told me to give the knee rest. I had to  
stay with my job of driving to trailhead locations, but now with a  
still-painful knee. I had to move in and out of the truck, and even  
operate the clutch, by using both hands to help lift up the knee to  
any new position. This went on for about a month.

The sequel is, I'm very susceptible to knee trauma with the left  
knee.  It is very sensitive and if bumped in a similar way as before  
but only lightly, it causes me to sense a return of the characteristic  
kind of pain which I had formerly known but, thankfully, does return  
to normal without any edema.

Note however that a full work-up wasn't made on either of the two  
occasions mentioned above, so any medical diagnosis herein is  
incomplete.

In the last year the same knee has gone sour in a less unforgiving way  
- I developed Catholic knee. My wife, a nurse, speculates that I now  
have a bone spur which causes a sharp needle-like pain when I kneel on  
the bent knee. This forces a modification on how I use the knee, but  
doesn't put it fully out of action.

There is a lesson I learned when climbing long ago with friends who  
had banged up a knee while climbing. Those friends were able to  
continue climbing following recuperation, but like clockwork, twenty  
years later they found themselves requiring orthopedic or arthroscopic  
surgery to deal with a knee which had subsequently developed  
deterioration within the cartilage capsule. Was this development  
related to their long ago injury? I think so.

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/knee_injury/article_em.htm gives ten  
pages to the many kinds of injuries to the knee and links to many  
other pages. It appears that any complaint such as yours is not  
trivial, and should encourage thorough medical evaluation and care  
because of possible complications over the long term.

Good luck,
Campy