Here are some photos. I am trying everything to fix this but just walking is very painful. My quad strength should be good enough now, although I may be imbalance with a weaker medial quad but looking at the photo of course I would be. The problem is my right knee- left side as you face the front facing photo. I feel rotated and out of place with my femur. Any thoughts on this and rehab or stretches that work? MRI in April was unremarkable. This came from overuse from laying floor tile : (
Hi, your right leg seems to bow more?? And perhaps is over pronating
Have you seen a Podiatrist? Perhaps orthotics may help
Orthoics unfortunately do not help. My left is actually pronating much more from another shot I took- probably from right knee issues. I do notice the bowing more and I am not totally sure if I had that much before injury. My knee was absolutely 100% perfect in function before this happened. I could do anything and it never hurt- never even felt any sensation in the knee it was so darn good.
Yesterday my ortho said the patella was tracking good. I was laying back when he ran that test. I did not demonstrate the image I posted because he said strengthen the medial quad. I had a "good" workout today before this photo, so I am geting upset that all this work has been useless trying to fix the main issue. At least the pain is not "as bad" with the increase in strength but forget running since walking needs to be the first step.
Hi Steve, I have had the chance now to look closer at the extension exercises you recommended and also talked to a couple of physios about them. They all seem to agree that stretching is the key for sure but all i have talked to discourage the use of the leg extension machine. Never did get a good reason why and To tell you the truth that sort of confuses me because theres some utube videos I was watching and thats the very exercise they were recommending. Go figure.
The one thing I have noticed during this op is the variety of sorted views among the health care professionals regarding recovery from this surgery.
At any rate, a couple of the exercises you mention I am already doing but I figure I just have to be a bit more aggressive so the stretch holds. I don't know how you do the one where your lying in the prone position with your leg over the bed and hold it for an hour.
OFG also recommended that one to me but Ive been holding it only for about 5 min and find that hard. Guess I just have to roll up my sleeves and bite on a stick! Haha
anyway, I will give those exercises some serious effort and let you know the results.
Thanks again for the tips.
With the bed stretch- just move your femur around to change pressure points, and rotate your femur to get a different stretch- this will relieve pressure so you can do this longer.
My thoughts on physio are that I had 3 of them and all failed me- made me worse off! I also know 4 other people that failed physio in the last year with no success stories so physios are clueless imo.
The leg entension machine is the only machine I could get to hit my quads. Now mind you I believe I have rotational issues and no exercise including walking was hitting the inner quad. The leg extension did, athough painful to start. Some days I had to quit because I could not get the knee loose. 10 lbs. was hard!
Today I made it to 160 lbs. with both legs- pretty much even pressure on both.
For you, start with short arcs near extension. Use your other leg to raise the bar to get you started. Turn your leg out a little if you need to hit the medial quad to start. Check your patella tracking and make sure it is not too painful or grinding too much. Go slow to start. I am sure these are not fr everyone but I can say the last two times I did these I felt much better but it takes time and strength. It will hurt to start if there is no muscle to support you- oh, place the bar a little higher than your ankle if you can adjust to take a little pressure off the knee. Good luck.
Just an update on the bow legging, I took some more shots- one with the foor turned out and the knee looked more inline- but not really more comfortable to walk that way. I also intentionally bowed my left femur in a little and it made the tibia look more bowed. I just hope I can figure this out.
Suggest you see a sports physio to tackle any imbalance in the muscle actio. Nice flowers by the way!
I tried 3 physios including sport- they all made me worse off. I am trying to get my inner quad going. I have strength in it now but I am lateral quad dominant. My hamstrings also fire better/quicker when I try to contract my inner quad/vmo. The few times in the last three weeks when I feel my inner quad firing while walking is when the verious pains go away and the imbalance seems to go away as well. Then the opposite kneecap starts to act up!
Hi, you mentioned that your left foot is over pronating more and that the problem is with your right knee. Have you considered leg length discrepency? Over pronation on one side can be suggestive of a longer leg meaning overcompensating on the left which may be a factor in your right knee problems. Just a thought ?
robert
Meant to say overcompensating in the right side. Not left
Do you mean the left leg is longer and conpensating by dropping the arch?
Probably. I can assure you the problem is altimately with the right knee. In isolation, or whatever, it is all right side related. Anything going on with the left is a result of compensations from the right side. Although one strange thing is when the right side feels better, the left kneecap starts to cause trouble.
Anyway, my legs are the same size, never a problem before with anything until overuse injury. In other words, it can be corrected as it is not bone related. I will say last summer when I tried to run it felt like I was stepping into little potholes with the right leg- it is not so bad now but I do not run anyway- that wold be insane right now. I only noticed the pronation after I took the photo. The injury came from getting up and down for 8 hours two hours two days in a row after being on my knees- I used my right/dominant knee to stand up each time. Muscles got tight, knee cracked (painlessly) as a result a couple time, and had pain since- also got pain at bottom of knee resetting some uneven tile- it is hard to pry them up after being set down.
12 days later my knee started cracking while walking. I suspect muscles shut down from pain and it was more downhill from there. I feel I got all my muscles back to where they need to be but my inner quad does not fire properly in relation to my other muscles. The inner hamstring and outter quad fire first upon contraction. The hamstring really shouldn't fire at all like it is, but as long as the inner quad/vmo does not, it will and cause tightness/pain and alignment issues. When I feel the vmo fire while walking, the knee pain goes away.
I should mention I have very high arches- definately not the foot causing it. They don't even sell supports for me in stores. My one foot does not register on the machine but this is not the issue.
I am trying to find the cause, not treat a symptom which is hard online, and hard apparently for 7 professionals that I saw. It would be like giving a lung cancer patient a cough drop because he is coughing too much- find out why. Two of the orthos strongly suggested quad strengthening, esp inner/vmo. That is the theory I have to go on as symptoms seem to help with this.
My hope is that when the vmo fires, it will Relax the outer quad and hamstrings since they are acting like knee stabilizers- real crappy job they do however. When they do they are overworked and tighten, pulling everything out of wack. I can feel this tightness in isolation compared to the left side. When they relax I can feel my glutes work too- I've only worked my glutes hard for 12 months so that theory is crap too- strengthen the glutes and all will be good. They to start teaching physios about the quads again- everything needs to be looked at but 99% of them do not know squat about rehab when it comes to compensations from injury/muscle wasting. I had two of them tell me my quads were fine, even when I know for fact my vmo was all but dead!
Hi Steve, it's just an alternate theory to check out that your legs are equal in length. Just thinking out the box for a cause of your problem.
robert
I tried the heal wedge and all that but it did not help. I just can't believe a muscle imbalance can cause pain and dibilitaion like this. With a clean MRI and a year of rehabbing and still a ways away from hopefully a resolution. Completely mind-boggling. I see people walking all crazy from other conditions yet they have no pain. I see people walking toed-out and yet no pain. I cannot make it from my bed to the damn bathroom without pain...and I bust my butt rehabbing and resting while I see 350 lb. people older than me getting around with no problem...my Mom had an mri and had a torn meniscus, two cysts, grade 3 of 4 arthritis, grade 2 mcl sprain. She had the meniscus clipped, did virtually no rehab and at 76 it getting around better than! I'm glad for her but W-T-F!
I understand your frustration. I'm a podiatrist in the U.K. and I was racking my brain out for answers. Let's hope it does improve.
If you have any ideas on flexion contracture I'd like to hear them. I believe that is a big problem that went unrecognized with all the 7 pros I saw. It may be muscular related as a few nights ago I was able to, with some awkward effort, get to full extension. But of course like everything it is temporary. This is really throwing my gait forward on one side. What blocks extension is hard to tell because that too seems to change- sometimes back of the knee, sometimes front. It isn't anything consistent.
Hi, I have been having problem bending at times and extending. I looked up something callled External Torsion of the Tibia. Sometimes the Femur has twisted internally and the Tibia has twisted externally against the Femur causing pain either on Lateral or Medial side. Mhy right foot faces outwards when standing and lying down and other foot is straight. Figured it is a torsion of the tibia. So I rotated the Tibia internally a few degrees and it relieved the medial side pain and able to get better flexion and extension. There is PT video online shows how to do it. But you may want to run that by an Ortho or PT, There is possiblity of the Tibia rotated in Externally or Internally and needs adjustment. Goodluck, This is year later response, hopefully you were able to find some help. I figured my problem year later after partial menisticomy,