My knee

  • Thread starter Thread starter irongirl
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irongirl

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Well, my knee has been giving me problems for awhile now. Without going into all the details (I'm pretty sure I've already done that in my journal), I've had 3 surgeries in the past, and well my knee is pretty screwed up. So, Iknow that the cartilidge is a mess and hanging into the joint becasue of my symptoms- knee locking, ++stiffness and pain, and the last 2 days I have trouble even walking. I limp noticeably as I can't completely weight bear on that leg.

I see my surgeon on Tuesday- I already know that he is going to scope it and clean it up for me. I would say that it'll keep me out of the gym (for legs and cardio) for 4-6 weeks.

I don't know when I will have the surgery- extremely soon I hope. The surgeon is a friend of ours, so I'm pretty sure that he'll do it asap. Especially since I am going to have to stay off work as of now.

I thought I'd just let you all know what's up with me, for those that are interested.

And Aaron, a question for you. Until I have it done, is there anything from a PT perspective that can help? Would ultrasound be of any benefit?
 
Ultrasound may help with pain relief, but if it is an internal cartilage issue it probably isn't going to get deep enough to do much good. I would opt for interferrential electrical stim if you can get ahold of it - set it up in an x pattern around the joint so it puts the current right through the knee joint. That is my all time favorite treatment. If you can get access to the equipment I would run an extra long treatment session doing the first half (15-20 minutes) on 60 to 150Hz and the second half with it set at 1 to 10Hz. The 60-150Hz part will help decrease the pain through the gate control method - basically you'll feel the stim instead of the pain. The second half will decrease the pain by causing localized endorphen release. That is what I have been doingwithmy shoulder at home when it gets really sore, and it makes it feel great.

Good luck with getting into surgery quickly, I hope you can get it fixed and get on track for the contest!
 
Thanks Aaron. My PT doesn't want to use the interferrential on my knee because I have 2 large staples there from previous surgery and he's afraid of heating them up. Does that make sense to you? Would it really do that?
 
IFC won't heat up anything in your knee. I use it on patients with total knee replacements every day. The only thing you can't use it with is a pacemaker - for obvious reasons... that and I wouldn't put it directly over a metal implant (as in put the pads right on a screw that is near the surface), but staples are no issue at all. I've never heard of IFC causing anything to "heat up" before.
 
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