I am a 48 year old very active female, former MMA black belt, rock climber, cyclist, etc. I am accustomed to working out 8-10 hours a week. Last September I had a Lateral femoral condyle (LFC) microfracture in my left knee along with a lateral meniscectomy. Surgery included 7-8 microfractures. I am in my 8th month of recovery and it is going very slow. I spent 2.5 months non-weight bearing and did not get off crutched completely until 5 months. Waiting this long ended up with significant atrophy in my leg. I have an unloading brace that I just recently set to no-loading (0 setting) but still wear when my knee starts getting painful. I work out at the gym 3-4 days a week with 30 minutes cycling (90 cadence) and using weight machines for leg press, leg extension, leg curls and abductor exercises using a cable and ankle cuff. I still have significant knee pain in the microfracture area 2-4 days a week, mostly at night. My surgeon did a bone scan and MRI at 5 months to determine if there were any issues with the knee. Nothing showed up other than thinning cartilage in the original injury area. Although my recovery is slower than I would like, I am better than I was pre-surgery.
My questions are: 1) is this slow recovery and level of pain at 8 months reasonable? 2) Has anyone else had a similar experience? 3) How long should I wait before contacting my Dr. for further conversation? Also, my knee gets pink and warm at night sometimes. Does anyone know what causes this? This also happened with my lateral release of the patella in 2005.
