What is going on with my knee?
September 9, 2024 5:19 AM Subscribe
YANMD and I don't think a doctor is needed, but perhaps some of you who are experienced in Dealing With Knees can tell me what is probably going on in there and what is a good way to help it heal fast (rest vs gentle movement, elevation, cold vs hot, ace bandage or no, etc etc). Details under cut.
I'm in my late 50s, active, moderately hypermobile, bruise easily, heal well, high pain tolerance/low sensitivity. Knees have never given my any trouble before. A week or so ago I did something to my left knee while stacking wood (lifting, bending, twisting) that caused a sharp pain on the right side of my kneecap when moved at certain angles, plus a mild feeling of instability. I am guessing torn ligament? I kept on doing what I do while being careful of it, and about a week later my knee now feels very weird, rather like it has been filled with liquid on the entire inside. It doesn't hurt, and it bears my weight but feels a little dodgy in doing so. It is not swollen and looks identical to my other knee. There is some mild bruising on the kneecap which is not unusual for me. The sharp pain on the right side is no longer there. This has persisted for 3-4 days. Explanations and advice thankfully accepted.
I'm in my late 50s, active, moderately hypermobile, bruise easily, heal well, high pain tolerance/low sensitivity. Knees have never given my any trouble before. A week or so ago I did something to my left knee while stacking wood (lifting, bending, twisting) that caused a sharp pain on the right side of my kneecap when moved at certain angles, plus a mild feeling of instability. I am guessing torn ligament? I kept on doing what I do while being careful of it, and about a week later my knee now feels very weird, rather like it has been filled with liquid on the entire inside. It doesn't hurt, and it bears my weight but feels a little dodgy in doing so. It is not swollen and looks identical to my other knee. There is some mild bruising on the kneecap which is not unusual for me. The sharp pain on the right side is no longer there. This has persisted for 3-4 days. Explanations and advice thankfully accepted.
I have some unhappy experience with soft-tissue knee injuries, and the number one lesson I learned (the hard way first) is that once the infrastructure is damaged it is almost effortless to further injure it, because now stuff is loosey-goosey in there, and swollen, and just un-balanced. Do not assume "walk it off" until a doctor/physical therapist says so.
Get someone to bring you a cane if not a crutch or crutches today, while you arrange medical investigation. And slow down and move carefully especially in transitional movements - I badly aggravated mine getting in and out of the car, and the series of steps and turns required to exit my home and close/lock the door, and getting up/down particularly from lower sofas and toilets.
You really need to get it assessed to know what's wrong before you will know how to proceed - the perfectly acceptable rehab for one type of injury will fast-track other types to require surgery, but for a day or two I don't think you can make any possible injury worse by avoiding weight-bearing on it and preventing uncontrolled twisting.
I personally have a bad habit of Dr Googling this stuff and you shouldn't do that, but just in case: the Bob & Brad youtube channel has some videos on assessing knee pain based on symptoms, and then some videos on recovery and rehabilitation of the various things you can mess up in there.
My first foray into this world was actually fracturing my tibia head when I hyperextended my knee, which is why you really should go get imaging (though this one was hard to miss - I could feel and hear the bone moving). That healed very well, but the other knee is the soft-tissue problem now and honestly I'd take another break over this because it's still easily re-injured two years later.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:34 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]
Get someone to bring you a cane if not a crutch or crutches today, while you arrange medical investigation. And slow down and move carefully especially in transitional movements - I badly aggravated mine getting in and out of the car, and the series of steps and turns required to exit my home and close/lock the door, and getting up/down particularly from lower sofas and toilets.
You really need to get it assessed to know what's wrong before you will know how to proceed - the perfectly acceptable rehab for one type of injury will fast-track other types to require surgery, but for a day or two I don't think you can make any possible injury worse by avoiding weight-bearing on it and preventing uncontrolled twisting.
I personally have a bad habit of Dr Googling this stuff and you shouldn't do that, but just in case: the Bob & Brad youtube channel has some videos on assessing knee pain based on symptoms, and then some videos on recovery and rehabilitation of the various things you can mess up in there.
My first foray into this world was actually fracturing my tibia head when I hyperextended my knee, which is why you really should go get imaging (though this one was hard to miss - I could feel and hear the bone moving). That healed very well, but the other knee is the soft-tissue problem now and honestly I'd take another break over this because it's still easily re-injured two years later.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:34 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]
Could be ligament damage -- I've torn my ACL and there was really no pain and little swelling, just instability and "feeling weird" -- but I will say I heard a definite POP when my ACL went.
posted by misskaz at 8:07 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]
posted by misskaz at 8:07 AM on September 9 [1 favorite]
You only get two knees. If you live a lifestyle where you want to rely on both of them for a long time, is there any reason *not* to go see a doctor ASAP?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:05 AM on September 9
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:05 AM on September 9
Instability can lead to further damage, as noted above. Best advice is to have it checked by a physician. When my wife blew out her ACL, it was immediately clear something was wrong. When I did same, I was able to run on it and didn't see noticable swelling for a day or so, plus it was still stable enough that the tear needed to be confirmed by MRI. Depends on a lot of different things (muscle strength, age, gender, whether it's a single tendon or multiple, etc.) - first doc thought I had meniscus damage, the second confirmed it was an ACL tear.
You want to know the answer early to start on appropriate treatment. ACL tears are not something you HAVE to fix, but your activities and lifestyle may suggest that you SHOULD fix it (I ski and backpack, so surgery was a no-brainer - even for runners, it's not necessarily something that needs repair though, with proper bracing).
posted by caution live frogs at 8:11 AM on September 10
You want to know the answer early to start on appropriate treatment. ACL tears are not something you HAVE to fix, but your activities and lifestyle may suggest that you SHOULD fix it (I ski and backpack, so surgery was a no-brainer - even for runners, it's not necessarily something that needs repair though, with proper bracing).
posted by caution live frogs at 8:11 AM on September 10
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Your symptoms sound similar to what I experienced when I tore a meniscus in my left knee about ten years ago. I went and got an MRI to confirm what was going on, but fortunately symptoms had mostly gone away before further treatments like an operation could be discussed, so I decided to just leave it alone and go easy on it for a while. A few weeks later the knee was feeling back to normal. Sometimes I get a bit of pain if I overexert it, but otherwise it's been fine. Back then the doctor told me that this was due to "age-appropriate degeneration" - I was barely forty then.
This summer a similar thing happened to my right knee, and since I knew the symptoms, I decided to wait a little while before seeing a doctor about it. Lo and behold, the pain and wobbly feeling went away after two or three weeks.
If you are able to, I would recommend going to a doctor and maybe getting an MRI to confirm what's going on. I just skipped it the second time around because I was 99% sure that it was the same thing I had already had.
(I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice.)
posted by amf at 6:53 AM on September 9 [2 favorites]