Hey y'all! I decided to create this diary because I am going to have a pretty serious knee surgery in about 2 weeks and I want to be able to track my progress. Here is my story:
Age 11: I fell straight on my patella tendon/shin bone. I went to an Orthopedist and he diagnosed it as patella tendinitis and I went to physical therapy for a few months and was all better.
Age 12: Knee pain comes back. Go back to the doc, he says it is tendinitis again. So I go back to PT and got slightly better.
Age 13: Knee pain comes back and is very severe. The doc then diagnosed it as patella tendinosis (the chronic form of tendinitis). I returned to PT but developed severe hip pain so PT was stopped.
Age 14: I have a marching band injury (I heard a really loud pop and could not apply any weight for a few days.) I had 2 MRIs that showed nothing but bruising.The doc said to just wait it out but if I still have pain in a few months, then we will schedule a scope surgery. I have the surgery and they discovered that my kneecap was stuck on my thighbone and all the cartilage under it was torn up. So they (supposedly) fixed it with a lateral release. I still have consistent pain after the surgery. I went to PT for about 5 months, 2x a week. Then they discovered that my Q-Angle was extremely high and that all my bones were turned outward. The bone structure is the same on both of my legs, but I only have persistent pain on my right. We still don't know why. I went back to my doc multiple times throughout this, but he just thought I needed to strengthen my leg more. But I COULDN'T strengthen it because I had so much pain. He then put in the Bledsoe 20.50 brace in hopes that this would realign my kneecap. Needless to say, it didn't.
Age 15: About 2 months after I turned 15, I went back to see my doc. At this point, I had been wearing my brace for around 5 months with no progress. It did reduce the pain a little, but only from like an 8 to a 6. So not that much improvement. We decided that my knee problems were because of genetics (a combination of my dad's partial bow-leggedness (hence the high Q- Angle) and my mom's bad tracking alignment). He said that the only thing he could think of to do is a kneecap realignment surgery along with another lateral release and scope to clean my knee out. He had collaborated with 6 or so of the other doctors at his office and they all thought it sounded like a good idea. The surgery is scheduled to be sometime in the next two weeks, depending on my doctors availability.
If any of y'all have had a similar experience or have had a kneecap realignment surgery, please feel free to share your experiences. It's greatly appreciated!
