cruciate knee ligament

john74

i ended up with cruciate knee ligament damage after a fall playing football this was nearly a week ago, but i still cant bend the knee more the 15 degrees and is still very swollen and bruised, has anyone suffered with this or any advice would be welcome.

Red Panda

What did the Dr's say about your injury? hopefully it's not too serious matey. I guess you're still in the diagnosis stage? It's certainly up to the Dr's to decide how your knee will be treated.

As a suggestion in the mean time, try to keep your swollen knee supported/elevated and do the frozen peas wrapped in a damp towel on your knee thing when it aches. This should help to reduce the swelling, but it won't solve any damage inside your knee (see first paragraph).

I've found with my knee that aching = swelling. If your swelling doesn't go down you may 'knee'd' (hohoho ) to have it aspirated.

The good news is that cycling should help only once you start your physio, not before. Knee's eh, who'd 'ave 'em.

Dr_Death

Depends on which cruciate you have damaged, how badly and what other ligaments you damaged at the same time. Most commonly damaged playing footy is the anterior cruciate ligament, up to 50% of ACL injuries have associated meniscal injuries; acute injuries are likely to have associated injuries of the medial collateral ligament (the one on the inside of the knee) and meniscus.

To be honest you should be starting to get more movement than that back if it was not too serious an injury. Who diagnosed you injury and where. Most A&E departments will have acces to some sort of acute knee clinic where you can be seen by an orthopaedic surgeon with an interest in knee injuries, or they should be able to refer you directly to the physios if this is deemed appropriate.

Having said that knee injuries can take ages to get fully better and with a lot of ligament injuries there is very little for medics/physios to do until the acute injury is healed. At this point the physios come into their own with exercise programmes to strengthen up the knee again. (A large proportion of the stability of the knee comes from the strength of the muscles and you can loose 20% of the muscle bulk with just two weeks of non-use. this means that once the acute injury is healed the knee is still very weak.)

If it continues to give you grief then a trip to either A&E or your GP may be in order to get referred on to a knee specialist. A&E usually have the fastest access (the acute knee clinic reffered to above) but be prepared to wait to be seen as your injury is not really an 'emergency' in the true sense of the word. Best to go at a quiet time (weekday mornings) and take a book.......

john74

i went to the a and e in milton keynes, i was xrayed. so i assume its not broken, they told me it was ligament damage gave me a pair of crutches and sent me on my way. so thats as much as i know, i can put more weight on it in the last day or so but the flexibility of the knee joint is just as bad or even worse than the day after i had done it.

Red Panda

I'd definitely say you should try to reduce the swelling using the frozen peas idea. Maybe 20 minutes on 20 mins off? With my knee I found that it wouldn't fully articulate due to the swelling and that it was inhibiting my movement a lot, resulting in,as Dr Death mentioned muscle wastage. Hopefully you'll get some movement back once it goes down John.

Through not knowing what to do I didn't do the frozen pea thing to my knee, just hoping the swelling would go down. It didn't.

In the end I had to have the excess fluid drained off in a medical procedure. The aspiration experience made me cringe because I don't like needles

Try to reduce the swelling and if things don't get better over the next week or two as Dr Death suggests get yerself down the A&E for a 12 hour wait to see a disinterested Quack :roll:

Good luck and take care

guilliano

Alternate between ice and heat. Ice will reduce the swelling, heat will stimulate blood flow to aid healing. I tore my cruciate years ago and unfortunately it can be a long process. Keep it elevated as much as possible, don't put weight on it until the doc says it is safe to do so and take ibuprofen as instructed to help keep swelling down.

Dr_Death

Red Panda wrote:

Try to reduce the swelling and if things don't get better over the next week or two as Dr Death suggests get yerself down the A&E for a 12 hour wait to see a disinterested Quack :roll:

Oy!

Check my profile before slandering us all.



And you won't wait more than four hours these days as your not allowed (government says).

Red Panda

Dr_Death wrote:

Oy!

Check my profile before slandering us all.



And you won't wait more than four hours these days as your not allowed (government says).

Okay point taken I just speak from personal experience that's all :roll:

Dr_Death

Just messin' !!

guilliano

john74 wrote:

i went to the a and e in milton keynes, i was xrayed. so i assume its not broken, they told me it was ligament damage gave me a pair of crutches and sent me on my way. so thats as much as i know, i can put more weight on it in the last day or so but the flexibility of the knee joint is just as bad or even worse than the day after i had done it.

Are you local to MK John? If so where do you ride? I am stuck in Aylesbury so local to you.

MarvintheAndroid

Go see your GP and ASK for a referral to a specialist or physio. My experience of A&E after a shoulder injury was : no follow-up. After 2 weeks I consulted my GP and got a physio appointment the next week and am now well on the way to recovery. It will vary from place to place, but if you don't ask you probably won't get.

Marv.

HJ1976

My doctor sat me down, and told me to hold my leg out straight in front of me at seat height, he the hinged my leg outwardsfrom the knee with my shin still pointing up!!
He looked puzzled then refered me to James Cook Hospital to see a specialist, but my referal was intercepted by the Physios and I now have insoles that I never use- I just made sure that I tried to do the exercises. My long term pain is reduced, and my balance has improved!

crashandburn

i screwed my knee up badly snowboarding. that was in march!! i still have pain when kneeling down or falling off my bike if my knee compresses or bends more than 90 degrees.

john74

guilliano wrote:

john74 wrote:

i went to the a and e in milton keynes, i was xrayed. so i assume its not broken, they told me it was ligament damage gave me a pair of crutches and sent me on my way. so thats as much as i know, i can put more weight on it in the last day or so but the flexibility of the knee joint is just as bad or even worse than the day after i had done it.

Are you local to MK John? If so where do you ride? I am stuck in Aylesbury so local to you.


newport pagnell mate i do most of my riding at woburn sands, chicksands or salcey forest.

DarkStarr

I did what sounds very similar, I could not straighten my right leg fully for nearly 6 months (although it got a little better each day).

I was diagnosed with a bucket handle tear of the cartlidge and whilst in surgery to repair and remove the fragments they discovered a ruptured ACL . According to the docs I ruptured the ACL this inturn allowed my knee joint into a unatural position which inturn gouged a chunk out of my cartlidge which then lodged itself in my knee preventing it from straightening (and why I got a bit better each day as I was grinding the floating cartlidge down slowly).

Hope this isn't whats happened to you as I still cannot play football yet and I did this in Jan 06, although I took up cycling as my surgeon suggested and am loving it.

Gaz

The Spiderman

I did the same playing rugby.It took a year before I got full mobility back.