The patello-femoral joint :

arthoscopic surgery question for all - - Posted by katarina (katarina), 21 October 2002

i am having a diagnostic arthoscopy and i have two questions
 1. if i am maltracking at all, will my doctor be able to see it during this surgery?
  2.  how long after the surgery will i be in pain- how long til walking is normal, stairs pain free, etc
 3. how bad will teh pain be?  
thanks in advance!!!
Posted by Linds (Linds), 21 October 2002

if all the surgeon does is diagnostic Arthroscopy the ain shouldn't be bad.   I had one of those done when I was 17 and I walked into school the very next day. I didn't take anything more than a Tylenol and only took those the first day. Everyone is different though and it depends on your pain tolerance too.   Alot of surgeons however, will do a procedure they feel is nececdsary when they get in there. I had diagnostic scope in April, and woke up having had a LR. So ...that is a possibility too. Your surgeon should be able to see the tracking when he is in there. My tracking was obvious when he had the nurse bend my leg, my knee cap tilted and slid laterally.
I hope that the surgery goes well for you and they find out the problems. Good luck and take care, when is your surgery?
Hugs and HEaling
Linds
Posted by newbie (newbie), 21 October 2002

I had an diagnostic scope last year and it was really not bad at all.   But one thing I will say, is that my doc didn't see my maltracking problem.  He said everything looked just fine.  I was in horrible pain still so I went to a new doctor and he saw the maltracking on the Xray (don't ask why the old one didn't)  but anyway, both doctors said that the reason my old doc may not have seen it during the scope was because he was looking at a different part of the knee.  (I can't say that I really understand any of that, but hey...they are the experts!)
ANyway, the scope itself was not bad and I really didn't have much pain.  My swelling was minimal and I had a few small bruises.  I think I used my crutches for about 2 days.  SO you see... no need to worry, it will all work out  Good luck!

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