I recently dislocated my patella surfing. I’ve had this happen in the past during other activites, but it has been 10 yrs. I saw an orthopedic knee specialist and he is recommending surgical detachment of a lateral ligament and attaching it medially to stabalize. He’s not making a really hard sell. We have agreed to physical therapy in the meantime. However, has anyone else had this type of injury and undergone surgery versus conservative therapy such as muscle strengthening and braces. Recommendations welcome.
There may very well be two knee injuries that are exactly the same but I wouldn’t count on any Swayloholics to make the call on yours. If you’ve really torn it up, surgery may be an excellent option for long term stability and pain relief.
I’ve worked in health care for 30 years and spent a good part of that in ortho. Trust me - do yourself a favor. If you don’t like what you’re hearing from your doc, you owe it to yourself to get an independent second opinion. Make yourself an appointment with a new doc and start from scratch - don’t even tell the second guy what the first guy has told you.
If you have insurance, make sure you contact them regarding a second opinion. Usually they are stoked at the possibility of getting out of paying for an unnecessary operation and will gladly pay for a second opinion.
thanks for the advice.
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I’ve got a very unstable left knee. It limits me somewhat, but I surf on it, wearing an Ace wrap that’s tight enough so it doesn’t pop easily, loose enough to flex so that I have good range of movement, and so that if it starts to pop, the brace doesn’t keep it from popping back. It’s inconvenient, but the choice is get surgery and be in a cast and then out of the water for three months, or surf until it locks or completely fails which might not happen. The injury is 30 years old. Hope that helps.
I’ve had this happen a few times over the years, from when I was about 9 or 10 until a few years ago, I’m 26 now. There is nothing that feels more horrible than when your kneecap is out of place, it just feels so WRONG. I’m shuddering just thinking about it. It just seems to have a specific place where the slightest movement will pop it out, I’ve done it playing rugby and climbing a tree, so it’s a broad range of stress to cause it to happen. Not fun having to climb down a tree with your knee out of place. I found if you hold it with both hands and try to flex your knee you can work it back into place with much less pain than just shoving it back in. I’ve never had any formal rehab on it, but after much strengthening through mountain biking and uphill hiking it hasn’t happened, knock on wood, in about 3 years. I think that anything you can do to strengthen the muscles that attatch to the patella will help, a friend of my dad’s who is a doctor advised getting some ankle weights and sitting in a chair and doing knee lifts. Good luck, that is a bothersome injury! However, the pain and rehab time seemed to decrease with every incident, not sure if that’s a good sign or not.
I know there are good flexible sports knee braces made out of wetsuit material that people surf in, and some of them are designed specifically with patella stabilization in mind. Believe it or not, Body Glove has some, so does another company named Hely-Weber (Hely-Webber) (?). See a good (young) sports doc -orthopedics guy- preferably who works in a surfing community to see if he thinks you qualify. Maybe find out from the distributors of those braces the name of a good sportsmed doc who is familiar with their line. Some aren’t.