Physio on board? Looking for knee issue to be explained.

JustAnotherSaver

I don't really want to book a GP or physio slot that could be used for someone who really needs it just to satisfy my own curiosity. I'm also not looking for 'medical advice' as I know that can't be given on the board. There's naff all that can be done for me as far as I'm aware but I'd just like to satisfy myself with a WHY to the following...

So in my late teens I picked up something that was around the 40-50kg weight mark and my leg gave out on me and I fell to the floor. Had handled that weight no problem for a long while but this once it didn't like it. Story short it was torn cartilage. Knee op, bit of the cartilage shaved down. I forget the recovery time - 3 weeks rings a bell but may have been 6. Whatever it was is all that it took & since then it's been pretty much fine. The odd bit of grief occasionally but really not often at all.

Late 20s I took an approx 3 foot drop & as I landed my other knee gave out. Obviously from being kids you jump from heights so many times & not once had the knee given me any sign of trouble but this once it just went.

Different pain to the other. Very sharp shooting when I put weight through my heel. So for example - if i got out the car, when i planted my foot to push up it would hurt a lot, but I could jog no problem. When the pain came on it was very intense and sharp but it would go as soon as it came.

Saw various medical folk. Eventually a specialist ran tests, passed them all except for one & he said immediately my kneecap is knackered. Op needed.

Op had ... he said he removed some 'plica membrane' and 'cleaned it up'.

Recovery time was given as 6 weeks. 13 weeks later I still wasn't great. Blood clot problems didn't help. Then I noticed I had lost some feeling down the outside of my knee. I could feel pressure similar to when you're numbed up for a filling but in a certain small area I could stick a needle in my skin for example and it wouldn't hurt.

Questioned the guy and very dismissive he said no idea I wasn't working in that area .. and that was that. Specialist said any kind of impact is now out of the question.

It took 2 years to get to a point where it didn't hurt daily. If i walked on it too much then it was an intense feeling of pressure like it was being vice gripped from the outside but was also going to explode from the inside. At times i was damn near dragging my leg around.

FFWD 10ish years and i'm at a point where I can't do any impact like he said. If I even try to do the slightest bit of jogging, even just light jogging on a treadmill barely breaking a sweat for 30 seconds I can be paying for it for weeks.

I'm mostly ok walking. I've improved compared to what I just mentioned but if i'm on my feet all day then again it starts feeling tight and I can be dragging my leg around a bit.

I'd say definitely the first knee was a successful op and improved the situation but in my view, even if not medically correct, I certainly FEEL like I'm worse off with the 2nd knee op. I'd have taken the short sharp pain compared to this lingering dull intense pain that can come on. Whether the sharp pain would've been worse for my body long term, I don't know.

So to the question, i'm just wondering if anyone with the medical knowledge can give me a scientific reason as to why the 2nd one has been such a disaster where the first one was a great success? I know there were different base causes but I'm no medical person so to me it's just 2 knee ops.

Just to satisfy my curiosity more than anything.

theoretica

They are both your knees so I can see why you expect them to be similar, but really they sound like different problems on different knees that just happen to belong to the same person.

Spoonie_Turtle

Not a clue, but it's interesting you've experienced disbelief and depending on the phrasing they used, gaslighting - they say it's not medically possible and yet something's going on, that's the reality, no matter whether they want to believe it or not.  This is exactly why people with chronic conditions tend to get worse despite the medical profession's continued denial that there is anything wrong to begin with!  Bodies' behaviour and reactions are not constrained by what the textbooks say, funnily enough.

It's not moneysaving but if you had any chance of going private and giving them a copy of your medical records, you might stand a better chance of getting an explanation (even if there is now nothing they can do).

Brie

not a medical type in any way but I've had a knee replacement so will share a few thoughts....

OK - so I used to be very very sporty.  Long distance running, 400 meters, 100 m hurdles, high jump, rode my bike 10 miles to and from work.  But I had a run in with a tree once when skiing and another bad injury a few years later. 

FFWD 30 years and I was long distance walking in the alps and fell and badly bruised my knee cap (I think that's what the Italian doctor tried to tell me).  The remedy was to have complete rest for a few days - which was fine as was able to get back to the hotel and just sit about eating and drinking for a few days.  No problem.  Except that any time after when I tried to ride a bike my knee would click at each rotation and would ache for days after.

Another few years passed and my knee was clicking a bit every time I bent my leg but wasn't too dreadful.  And then we moved house - and it was me up and down stairs carrying heavy boxes.  My knee throbbed!  And a couple of weeks later I was at work, stood up from my desk and my leg just went!  Doctor said it was due to me being overweight (sadly true) and I just needed a bit of exercise and physio.  Tried that for a year but the knee just got worse so I could barely walk.  Strangely too I couldn't lay in bed with it flat as that was massively painful.

I got referred to an surgeon who told me that basically my knee had nothing between the bone and knee cap.  Injections would help temporarily but wouldn't resolve the problem, neither would a minor scrape procedure as there was nothing to scrape.  So complete knee replacement.  Fortunately due to signing up for a care plan at work 10 years earlier I was able to get the whole thing sorted within a couple of months rather than having to wait for the NHS.  

After the surgery they had me up and walking within 24 hours and having physio as well.  Recovery time was touted as being anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks but acknowledging that a complete recovery, if possible at all, would not happen in under 6 months.  Because I'm still too heavy I was dependent on a walking stick at least for about 10 weeks but made the decision at that point to give it up as it also meant I wasn't actually walking properly - which is really essential.  

What I wasn't told prior to surgery but since discovered is that I have permanent nerve damage.  Because my leg was opened from about 4 inches above to 3 inches below my knee all nerves that crossed that are were severed.  Some have recovered but a lot have not.  So I have permanent "asleep" feeling over most of that area.  It's not remotely as bad as originally but I realise it's not going to improve at this point (2 years after surgery).  Someone mentioned at some point that boosting my vitamin D levels during the recovery period might have helped.  Too late now but I'll take the vitamins anyway as I am low on D in any case.  

Sometimes my knee still hurts.  And sometimes it will click loud enough for work colleagues to notice and comment.  But none of it's a patch on the year between when I first hurt it in our move and when I finally had surgery.  

Brie

And as to specifically your situation - age.  Repair is always harder as we get older.  That's why good nutrition is a crucial thing to help.

JustAnotherSaver

Yeah I hear you on that one! Thanks for sharing your story & thanks also to everyone who's replied.

I'm with you on the clicky thing too. If i sort of give my leg a short sharp kick out at a 90 degree angle (kind of awkward to explain) it'll give an almighty crack but then feels looser afterwards. Could be in my head, although the cracking is certainly not.

I do wonder if the numb feeling contributes in any way to the overall dull ache I get when I get flare ups. Again, i'll never know as I don't have it 'good' to compare to.

I ended up putting in a complaint about the surgeon. When I was going for one of my reviews I was still in quite a bit of pain and he was testing range of motion which was hurting me. Obviously I was then wincing and he was real short & sharp with me saying I was just hypersensitive.

I know I shouldn't have done but I told him I'll test out his pain threshold and see how sensitive he is. Don't you dare try to imply I'm making any of this up again.

He never saw me again and from research he returned to Spain and the knee centre was closed down. I've spoken to medical people since and they've heard negative things about the place I went to. Obviously there'll have been plenty of total success stories from there too like anything I guess.

Some years after the initial op I was complaining to my GP how much it was still giving me trouble & he sent me for an MRI which they said was 'normal'. He said the only real way beyond that would be to go back inside and have a look.

But by then I'd lost faith completely. It's at a point where I can manage. It's not great and there's things i'd like to do that I can't. It restricts me at times but I can get by in the majority of my day-to-day life now so I'm not willing to risk it purely based on the disaster that was the original op.

I've had 2 other ops that were complete successes, 1 of them being the other knee i spoke about. That's why I was so ok for this op.

These days I wont get opened up (i include keyhole surgery in that which all mine have been) unless it's 100% necessary now. If i can get by then I get by.

Just doesn't stop me wondering why.

MovingForwards

Bodies are a mysterious thing, regardless of what all the text books say. 

I rarely go to a GP as I don't get the help I need.

GPs / consultants looking at one specific thing, rather than the overall situation, maybe it's because they don't have the time.

The best help I've had was seeing a chiropractor / physio guy as he took a full, detailed history from me, did a physical to check abilities and was able to say where the root cause is.

Oddly enough I recently had my booster and was giving the nurse a quick rundown of my medical history, straight away he said oh you've got x, I told him that's what I suspected and I'm considering going private to get it confirmed or an alternative diagnosis.

Honestly, just book the private appointment as you'll get answers.

Murphybear

Brie said:

not a medical type in any way but I've had a knee replacement so will share a few thoughts....

OK - so I used to be very very sporty.  Long distance running, 400 meters, 100 m hurdles, high jump, rode my bike 10 miles to and from work.  But I had a run in with a tree once when skiing and another bad injury a few years later. 

FFWD 30 years and I was long distance walking in the alps and fell and badly bruised my knee cap (I think that's what the Italian doctor tried to tell me).  The remedy was to have complete rest for a few days - which was fine as was able to get back to the hotel and just sit about eating and drinking for a few days.  No problem.  Except that any time after when I tried to ride a bike my knee would click at each rotation and would ache for days after.

Another few years passed and my knee was clicking a bit every time I bent my leg but wasn't too dreadful.  And then we moved house - and it was me up and down stairs carrying heavy boxes.  My knee throbbed!  And a couple of weeks later I was at work, stood up from my desk and my leg just went!  Doctor said it was due to me being overweight (sadly true) and I just needed a bit of exercise and physio.  Tried that for a year but the knee just got worse so I could barely walk.  Strangely too I couldn't lay in bed with it flat as that was massively painful.

I got referred to an surgeon who told me that basically my knee had nothing between the bone and knee cap.  Injections would help temporarily but wouldn't resolve the problem, neither would a minor scrape procedure as there was nothing to scrape.  So complete knee replacement.  Fortunately due to signing up for a care plan at work 10 years earlier I was able to get the whole thing sorted within a couple of months rather than having to wait for the NHS.  

After the surgery they had me up and walking within 24 hours and having physio as well.  Recovery time was touted as being anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks but acknowledging that a complete recovery, if possible at all, would not happen in under 6 months.  Because I'm still too heavy I was dependent on a walking stick at least for about 10 weeks but made the decision at that point to give it up as it also meant I wasn't actually walking properly - which is really essential.  

What I wasn't told prior to surgery but since discovered is that I have permanent nerve damage.  Because my leg was opened from about 4 inches above to 3 inches below my knee all nerves that crossed that are were severed.  Some have recovered but a lot have not.  So I have permanent "asleep" feeling over most of that area.  It's not remotely as bad as originally but I realise it's not going to improve at this point (2 years after surgery).  Someone mentioned at some point that boosting my vitamin D levels during the recovery period might have helped.  Too late now but I'll take the vitamins anyway as I am low on D in any case.  

Sometimes my knee still hurts.  And sometimes it will click loud enough for work colleagues to notice and comment.  But none of it's a patch on the year between when I first hurt it in our move and when I finally had surgery.  

There’s nothing worse than dodgy knees 

I managed to tear the cartilage in my knee when I was 32.  I was in hospital for 3 weeks and they told me I’d get arthritis and would eventually need a replacement.  Roll on 25 years.  Painful knee that affects walking.  Saw a Consultant who took one look at my X-ray and said I needed a TKR.  I had it done 18 weeks later.  Usual story it takes about 6 weeks to recover

The Teaching Hospital where I had it done had a research project requiring patients with  knee replacements so I volunteered.  (I can’t remember the exact details).  

One of the unexpected results was that it takes patients much longer to recover from TKRs than you are told. 

10 years later it still hurts and I can’t bend it enough to ride a bike.

The Orthopaedic Dept has an excellent reputation, nothing they did wrong, I just had an awkward knee.