Bone breaks around the knee :
My first post: Patella Fracture - - Posted by wetherel (wetherel), 20 June 2004
Sunday: I fractured my patella playing soccer on 6/13/04, when my knee hit another player's knee, and my muscles were tensed. I tried to stand up, and felt a grinding in my knee as I fell to the ground. I went to the emergency room in an hour. They took xrays, and the upper and lower piece were touching, so they said it might heal if I kept my leg straight. They put a splint on it, and said to see my sports doctor. I had little to no pain with the splint, with no pain killers.
Monday: A figured out a trick for moving my immobilized leg: I use the toes/foot of my other leg to lift and carry the leg from from place to place.
Tuesday: A good way to go from laying on the floor to standing, is to roll onto my good knee and two hands, then use good leg to raise my body, then grab the crutches.
Wednesday: At my sport's doctor, new xrays were taken showing the two pieces had moved 1/2" apart, so he would have to to surgery to tie them together. I also took an MRI today, to check for any ligament damage. I don't know the results. Still little or no pain, with the splint, my leg straight, and no pain killers.
Friday: I had surgery, under general anesthesia, where they first probed with a small camera to view damage, then drilled two holes between the two pieces, put in two pins, then a figure 8 piece of wire to hold them together. I think he did some debridement, to minimize the seam at the joint, to prevent arthritis later in life. He said the surgery would last 45 minutes. I didn't wake up until after 2:45, so I'm not sure how long it lasted. I'm going to call him on Monday to find out what happened. I live on the second floor, so I hopped up the stairs and into bed early last night.
Thursday: I move about the house on crutches backwards, dragging my splinted leg, which is wearing smooth sock. I always backward turn in the direction of bad leg. This seems to minimize the muscle contractions on the bad leg.
Friday night: some pain as the medicine from surgery wore off, I took 5mg of percocet, which worked well.
Saturday: I've been taking 1 5mg vicodin every 4 hours, sometimes no pain, sometimes mild pain, until this afternoon, when I tried to get into bed, my leg swung back, and back arched trying balance on my good leg. That really hurt, and had been lingering at a mild level for about an hour, and back to little-to-no pain after two hours.
What movements should I avoid to prevent additional damage? Is it possible to break the pieces, or for small pieces to grind off, before the bones begin to heal? If ligaments are repaired, are they stitched?, and is it possible for the stitches to pull apart?
Posted by lizl (lizl), 23 June 2004
wetherel,
So sorry to have to welcome you to our little band of survivors, but you've come to the right place.
Those screws (pins) and the figure 8 tension band are going to do a pretty good job of holding things together for you. The primary thing to remember right now is that you must not take ANY CHANCES, because another fall could undo the kind surgeon's work! Take it easy and just be careful. Overdoing it can result in some really painful muscle spasms that will bring tears to your eyes. Sometimes the spasms come on with nominal moving about, so don't be surprised if it happens to you.
Right now, be good to yourself and remember to pump your foot to keep the blood circulating in your leg.
LizL
Updated Thu Apr 29 2010
