The doctor says my knee is just a strain! 2-3 weeks and I'm back on skates. He also says the pain I'm experiencing is a result of some combination of pinched muscles and/or nerves, but it's not in the right place for the pain to actually be from a ligament. I'm still going for my second opinion next Tuesday just in case. So, let's recap the things I learned about knees this week. (the usual caveats apply. I am not a medical professional. Most of this stuff came from Google.)
There's also the Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) and the Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL). I did not Google these because I did not have a problem with them, but judging from this diagram I'm going to go on a limb and say that they stabilize your knee on either side. If you want to get all sciency you can Google them yourself.
When your hurt your knee doctors do two tests on physical examination to test for damage to either your ACL or PCL. For ACL damage they will have you lie down on the table and bend your knee with your foot flat on the table. Then they will grab your calf and pull forward. If you have ACL damage your shin will pull forward more than it should. This is called an anterior drawer test. Then the doctor will sit your your foot and push your shin forward to see if it moves back more than it should. That's called a lachman test. There's also a lot of generalized poking and prodding and moving of your leg but I don't have fancy names for those. I'm sure the doctors do.
This is really important. They need to do both of those tests on both your good knee and your bad knee. That's because there's no way to tell if you have more looseness than usual if they don't compare it against anything. You might just have loose ligaments. You might have abnormally tight ligaments. My first doctor in the ER last weekend did not do a comparison. She was a resident (read, student) and when her attending came in he had to do it all over again because she hadn't done both knees.
It's also worth noting that the doctor I saw today and the doctor I'm seeing next week are both sports orthopedic knee specialists who are very familiar with roller derby. I'm lucky in that people like that actually exist in Seattle. I think it's important to see sports physicians when you have a sports injury. Specifically, I think it's important to see a sports physician who either plays your sport or has a great deal of familiarity with it and specializes in whichever body part you hurt. They're going to have a much better appreciation not only for how you sustained the injury to begin with (better diagnosis) but also more experience in dealing with your particular issue and how other players that have your characteristics and injury have responded to treatment. Finally, getting back to 'normal' is substantively different for an athlete than it is for most people, even active people. 'Normal' in roller derby implies being able to resist a great deal more force and trauma than 'normal' for a runner or all-around gym enthusiast.
I have been cleared to do any activity that does not cause pain, including biking. After the doctor mentioned that the major source of pain was probably the result of a pinch, I spend some time on my legs with a rolling pin as well as some general massage. Then I felt really stupid for not trying that sooner because it caused a HUGE reduction in pain. So does stretching. I scheduled an actual massage for Monday.
<yay! so happy>
<posted on 3.31.12>
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