Back in the end of June of 2007 I had dislocated my knee. I had written a few posts about my ordeal and those posts have slowly turned into a place of support and guidance for those who have also suffered from the same injury. One of those people, Lisa, has just recently had some serious complications arise from her dislocation. She had a blood clot dislodge and travel to her lungs. Needless to say she had to be rushed to the hospital. It was quite serious and all related to her dislocation, something which she, nor I for that matter, would ever have expected to result from a dislocated knee.

Here is what Lisa said in her comment:

“My doctor says the clot, based on ultraound/doppler tests, began behind my knee. Apparently, the lower in the leg the clot, the less serious/smaller it is and the more likely it is to either be absorbed by the veins or become a DTV (deep vein thrombosis) instead of a Pulmonary Embolism. Above the calf is considered dangerous. Normally the act of getting up to pee throughout the day during immobilization is enough to prevent a clot. I must have had the perfect storm of injury location and severity. The scary thing is that it was 4 months after the injury when the clot broke free and traveled to my lungs. Please encourage everyone on this blog to discuss DVT and PE with their orthopedist. Leg cramps and shortness of breath might not seem serious, but they can be signs of something deadly. I would even encourage folks who have a dislocation to carry a card in their wallet stating that fact. If I had lost consciousness and an ambulance had been called, it might have taken longer to get to the root of the problem without my being able to provide a history.”

There you have it. If you are fairly new in your recovery of a dislocated knee, please be aware of the complications that could arise. Watch out for the signs and symptoms and talk to your doctor.

I would also like to thank Lisa who took the time to share her story so that others could learn from it.

Cheers,
Jonesy

I was having this conversation with someone about my knee injury and I thought that it would be a perfect post to share with everyone.

1. It is essential that you feel comfortable with the environment, the staff and, most important of all, the physiotherapist. If you don’t feel comfortable with any of those I would say move on until you do.
2. Try and find a physiotherapist that has worked with an injury like yours, this helps to ensure that he/she knows how to treat your specific injury.
3. Make sure the equipment looks well maintained and up to date. If there are machines that look like something Houdini escaped from I would say get out as fast as you can.
4. The physiotherapy clinic needs to be convenient and easy for you to travel to. The reason for this is that there will we days when you are finished your physio session and you are going to be exhausted and in some serious discomfort. The last thing you want is a drastically long trek back home.

I realize the list is quite small, but to me those were the key elements for my recovery. If you have any other tips you would like to add please let me know.

This is the third and final segment of my lateral dislocation of my right patella saga. The journey has taken us through the early stages, the middle stages, and now its ultimate conclusion: the physiotherapy.

The first week of physio was really tough. My quadriceps had completely disappeared. I had no muscle, it was weird to look at and depressing to see how quickly muscle can deteriorate (the doctor and physiotherapist both said that after 3 days of inactivity your muscles will start to deteriorate, your body determines that it isn’t essential so it breaks it down ). But my quad wasn’t the focus; it was my knee, and getting its full range of motion back. At the beginning of the week I could barely bend my knee at all, but after a grueling week of physio my range started improving. Aside from the exercises, I also had the electrodes hooked up to the knee; this would work the muscle around the knee. I also had an ultrasound type thing that was rubbed around the knee and surrounding area to break up the scar tissue that had formed on the tendons. What happened in my situation was that I had stretched my tendon to the point of just about breaking it apart, and because of that trauma there was a lot of micro fibrous tears throughout the tendon; and that is what the physiotherapist needed to repair as well.

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Well, I have given myself a swift kick in the arse for delaying this follow up post to my knee situation from last June. I would like to thank those that have shown interest in my patella demise and the least I could do is continue the story and bring some closure to the whole sordid affair. =)

So, where did I leave off? Right, the three weeks before seeing the doctor for the second visit. This was a pretty difficult time at first. It took awhile to get accustomed to living on the couch, you feel so boxed in and restricted, and your whole body starts to play games with differing comfort levels (i.e. when your legs are comfortable your back decides not to be, when you back is comfortable your neck decides not to be, etc.), eventually a happy medium is reached and all is right in the universe. The key is keeping yourself busy. I did a lot of reading, caught up on my Japanese animation shows (Naruto and Bleach), watched movies, and put together the two articles on web design and Canadian tax laws. When my mind was focused on other things besides my knee it makes it a lot easier to deal with.

One thing that was hard to deal with was getting up off the couch to move around, which took a few painful attempts to perfect because getting off the couch required the synchronized use of the crutches and upper body strength to be able to push yourself up off the couch and ensuring you keep your bad leg from doing anything other than staying off the ground. Getting back onto the couch was also just as fun, but a bit easier in my opinion.

Since I had everything I needed on the main floor of the house moving around with the crutches wasn’t too bad. It was when I had to go for my doctor’s visit that I realized just how death defyingly difficult it was to get down stairs with crutches and a splinted leg. Scary scary scary.

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