I did on Friday, it’s wired up now and very swollen and painful. Anyone got any tips?. I’ve been taking painkillers but am going to switch to nurofen to try and reduce the swelling,which I think is giving me the pain.
How did I do it?. I slipped over, that’s it. Docs thought it was very unusual. Long as it gets better I don’t really care:)
sorry to hear that , Mark !
get well soon .
A mate of mine , shane , completely blew out his kneecap , and has been told it will be six months , including physio , to recover well .
how did HE do it ?
Apparently , he misjudged a rock jump / paddle out at pt. cartwright … amblance trip to emergency …
In the photo that he sent me , his kneecap was nearly the size of a [small] soccer ball ?! yikes !
Snapped my patella in two horizontally (looked amazing on x-ray, sitting like .5" apart) in my 20s playing basketball. They put it back together with pins, and I was mostly confined to home (couldn’t drive stick) until I could crutch around.
My best advice is:
and
I didn’t do the rehab and favored the knee for years and it probably caused other problems. Today, the knees are comparable in function and strength, but it took a cortisone shot (mid-30s) to get the soft tissue to heal again after bouts of inflammation, and today is 20 years later.
Everybody will tell you do the rehab with a passion. They’re right.
One more bit of advice from the experience: if you have something that’s important to do that you can still do while confined to home, this could be your golden time to do it. I spent a lot of years learning to write fiction, and did my best (and most validated) writing when I was “home-strung” right after getting home from the hospital.
Much appreciated mate, thank you very much. I intend to rehab like a ninja, but will be careful not to hurt myself. The scans I had on the day didn’t show any tendon damage ( much to my surprise ) or any soft tissue damage. Really bizarre as I just slipped and fell, and the bad knee took all the load ( I had some tendonitis in that knee, which was ironically getting better ). I figured the tendons would have been destroyed but only the patellar broke. Strange.
When it happened it made a massive crack, and when I looked down, my knee cap looked like it had a 1/8" jagged crack through it. Those were the two pieces.
Have dislocated my left kneecap three times over the last 20 years …as in , the kneecap snaps over onto the side of my leg and has to be bashed back into place…man , I feel your pain…good luck with it.
Yeah, man, can fully relate. When I broke mine the doc said I probably broke it falling on it, but I think it broke from it levering over the bones behind it, like I pivoted but the kneecap didn’t, and it was bothering me on/off for months before that. Weirdest thing. I knew it was busted but my buddy insisted I’d be screaming if it wasn’t. I said, “OK, but let’s go to the hospital and stop and Burger King on the way,” and then drove us both through the drive-through (in my stick shift, lol) because I figured I’d be at the hospital all night. Very surreal, weird kind of injury.
That’s very fortunate to have no (or no evident) soft tissue damage. You’ll be fine, but just (imo) avoid the lackadaisical attitude to rehab, so you don’t end up favoring it all the time for years. I think I went up/down stairs strong leg first for like 3-5 years, maybe longer, all of which could have been much improved by just doing the physio like a well-behaved young man.
Good luck. Sounds like you were lucky, really, for having that injury.
Misspoke: it was bothering me for a year or a few years before that. That might dovetail with your experience… No joke, right before I broke it, I declared “last game,” because the knee was feeling wonky, but because it was the last game decided not to let my bud drive to the hole any more. Humorous last notes-to-self…
Repost
Just take it easy for the next four mos +,eat n drink well, listen to your doc - time heals…sorry to hear you fell man.
Sorry to hear that Beery. I havn’t had that injury, but snapped my tibia and fibula in two. Sticking out of the skin. Like others have said. Rigorous physical therapy as soon as possible so things don’t get all scarred down. Helps if your doctor is athletic and can relate to your situation. Mike
Yep, I think it levered over the bottom bone as i went down. I can use crutches now, although it’s a bit painful I can do it. Since ditching painkillers for nurofen for swelling I think it’s gotten better. Still swollen but swelling with knee ops seems common. I’m looking forward to re hab, despite the fact it’s going to hurt.
I’ve got lots of stairs at work, so I need to get it strong for that. And for surfing of course!
Cheers guys
sticking out?. Ah jeez mike!! Ouch!
yikes Mike !
rooster , HOW and WHEN [ what year ?] did you do THAT ?
karate ?
surfing ?
basketball ?
THAT would have been pethadone / morphine painkiller material right there , I’m thinking ?! …
how long did your rehab / physio ['physical therapy ’ , in the states ?] go on for , with that , and how does it all feel , NOWADAYS ?
cheers !
ben
got my new right knee on the 25th of last month
4 weeks later and i still cannot believe the amount of pain, swelling and stiffness i have been faced with
i thought i had prepared myself mentally for what was to come but this has surpassed anything i expected
i do my exercises three time a day,suffer thru PT twice a week and have run out of pain meds (oxycodone) twice already
I’m averaging 1-2 hours of uninterrupted sleep a day and have to ice an elevate my knee above my heart most of the day and night.
doing my best to move it but the range of motion sucks now and I donot want to go thru “manipulation”
2-3 more weeks to go so we’ll see
just remember protect your knees, rotators and sternum if you want to continue to surf without pain down the road.
and to put my situation in perspected its because I wanted almost 8 years before addressing the problem so the damage they had to repair was worse than normal.
Beer
Did it too with a knee to the concrete the crater was impressive where the knee cap was. Was sore but ok when I got home until my lab did a head butt right into the wires. Rehab hurts take pain meds before PT. Get the wire out when the Doc says it’s ok. Mine was delayed 2+ years as I broke my hip on the same leg 11 months after the knee. After 12 years the knee still working good more issues with the hip but still surfing.
Kevin
Holy hell!! That is serious looking mate, best wishes to you mate.
Long time no see. Been doing excercise after excercise after excercise for the past few months. Walking almost 100% now, and probably halfway through my recovery, although now I’ve started squats and load bearing excercise it should go quicker hopefully. I quite confident I’ll be in the water by the end of the year, and more than likely before that, so looking good. Going downstairs is a bit slow and unsteady but doable, and I’m getting better at it week by week. Quads are stil weaker than I’d like but getting there. I’m at about 120 range of motion, so pretty good, but still another 10 would make life a lot easier. Still making gains every week so I’m pretty happy, I can see the light now :).
cant fucking wait to get back on a board!.
how you going oneula?
its going well albeit much slower than I expected. (6 mo - 1 year)
they are worried about me getting addited to the oxycodone after 4 months of steady use (mostly to sleep) and are migrating me down tp hydrocodone
never realized how much the oxycodone was taking the “bite” off the irritation due to the knee stiffness
I’m functional but not “sports ready”
even getting stuck in heavy oahu stop and go traffic can be uncomfortable for my right knee and I have an automatic
as of yesterday in PT they started me on “surf exercises” on a balance board and upside down bosu ball
getting down real low is still a problem eventhough I’m doing a ton of squats and lunges in PT
like loehr said, i don’t think i’ll ever get that much range of motion again in the joint (130-150 degrees)
but after doing a ton of “hop ups” and “bottom turns” and “off the lips” on the balance board I’m feeling confident to give it a go soon
haven’t been near the ocean since my surgery in Feb
I definitely will put off getting the other one done for a while (! wanna get the surf bug out of my system first)
I can’t say enough about the PT, I’ve been lacking since getting back to work in late April and it shows.
hope your healing goes well
yesterday I saw a guy about my age come in on day one to PT in a wheel chair in the white massage socks and I could feel his pain
but it says allot that I was already using my walker while in the hospital to go to the bathroom and this guy couldn’t even standup after leaving.
I think surfers and people who post here on swaylocks must have a higher tolerance for pain.
:-o
Awesome mate!, great to hear you’re getting there!. I’ve only just started squatting really, 90deg is pretty much it for squats, but I’m still in the process so I’m happy. I think within the next 4-6 weeks I should be able to go back to most things, just want some more range of motion, and definately some more quad strength ( how much do they disappear haha ).
Hmmm upside down bosu ball huh? Might try that at the gym.
geez, i hope you guys both heal up!
