Hello everyone, hope that your all doing well

I'm sorry if this is so long but I'm in tears right now and feel like I need to write out my frustrations in hopes that someone may be able to provide some information.

I've posted a few times on my situation and frustrations but I'm now at my wits end. I'm a 28 year old healthy female who was involved in a car accident 11 months ago which resulted in a knee dislocation. I tore 3 ligaments and had them replaced in one sugery a week after the initial accident. I was then shipped to a rehab center due to my pelvis break I was unable to get proper care at home. My cascade of events began here where the PT's had no clue what they were doing and just cranked on my knee for 2 months until I was released to go home and changed to my OS's Pt team. By this time it was too late my knee was too far gone but we just kept at it. I continued to tell my OS at checkups that something was wrong I had 90 degrees flexion and barely 5 degrees extension loss at 6 months postop.

In the meantime I schedualed appointments with more OS's for second third and fourth opinions. They all stated that I need a LOA. None of which were willing to do it themselves for various reasons. Brought this information to current OS, he finally started taking me seriously and actually examined my knee and looked at my X-rays. Then he tells me 'oh you have a calicification in the posterior of your knee, this is why you can't move it". My response was well can't you remove this? He says no because the back is very vascular it cannot be removed. He also mentioned that it looks as though it could be the pcl graft that has calicified. So I asked if he could removed it and replace it with a new graft to which his answer was a simple NO again. After talking to him about my pain in the front he said he could open me up again and debride the scar tissue which may help some. At this point I was so desperate I agreed in hopes that it would solve some of the problem.

So on July 22, exactly 8 months after my first surgery he removed the scar tissue through my original incision and sated that there was a ton of it. I started PT the next day. Everything was going great, Extension is 0, PT was getting me to 120 degrees 125 felxion (my good leg is only like 130) mosttimes with little pain other than the normal incision site and muscle weakness. The forced ROM hurt in the sense of a deep stretch sensation which was a welcomed pain compared to what it felt like prior to surgery. After a few weeks it seemed to be a bit tougher to get me to 120 but I didn't worry too much because it wasn't that painful just more stretching required. By 3 months time 120 is so hard and painful I can't bear it. The back of the knee feels like someting is going to break during fllexion. I currently have 100 degrees active and 0 degrees extension though the extension never stays at 0. So back to the OS. He doesn't know what to do, sends me for a bone scan and puts me on nuerontin.

I'm in Canada and I just don't know what to do. I would like some information on seeing one of the specialists listed as an expert in the US. If I travel to see on of these experts, approximately how much am I going to be spending? Can anyone give me a fair idea of the cost of surgery in the US? I know for my LOA here it was about 6,000 because they get paid based on the time of the procedure. Also what surgeon would be best suited for my case since I have this calicification that I think may be part of the problem and may need to be addressed. Also assuming it is the pcl that has califiied, why is not possible to remove and put in a new one?? One last question is, do you think that is I wrote one of the AF experts that they could give me the name of a Canadian OS that may be able to sort out this mess?? I'm just at a loss and feel so hopeless.

thanks for listening.

Jessica

Thanks Nevella and everyone thats written private messages.

I'm taking Nevella's advice and am going to book an appointment with her OS whom I actually did research on and not only is he well versed in AF but he is an expert in my particular injury. I feel like Canadian OS wise he is my only shot. I will still have to fly down to see him but it's only a 45 minute flight. I'm just waiting to get the results on my bone scan.

I guess what frustrates me most is that through reading Dr. Noyes's AF tutorials he actaully talks specifically about my situation and what needs to be done. Yet my OS says it can't be done that I just need to live with this calicified ligament. In my opinion this ligament is causing some of the scar tissue by continually irritating the joint, just as a misplaced graft would do. If he were the type of open minded OS that I could have a conversation with I would bring in the tutorials and show him but unfortunately there is no reasoning with this guy. It just burns me that seeking appropriate treatment boils down to being able to afford it. If I had the money I'd be at Dr. Noyes's office tomorow morning.

What's worse is that I can't even sue the quy who hit me even though he was in the wrong. My province has this stupid "no fault" insurance and you can basically kill someone with your car and not get sued..........how messed up is that?

Anyhow thanks for letting me rant!