KNEE ARTHRITIS - Clearing spurs and cysts :

What are bone spurs in the knee? - - Posted by hmaxwell (Heather M.), 8 August 2002

My OS identified these on my merchant view x-rays, saying that they were on each side of the kneecap.  He pointed to what looked like each edge of the trochlear groove.  The ones in my surgical knee are bigger, but my good knee has them as well.

He didn't think they were causing my pain--he really felt that was adhesions from the previous surgery pulling the kneecap around.  Also, I had these bone spurs in the x-ray taken before my surgery, so they are not new.

I've never really heard anything about bone spurs in the knee.  Can anyone explain to me a little more about these and what causes them?  What do they mean, etc.  I will ask my PT on Friday as well, just wanted to make sure I understood the concept going in.

Thanks a bunch.

Heather
Posted by Kara (Kara), 8 August 2002

Hi Heather,

I also was told I had bone spurs in my knee. From what my OS said it's because of all the years of my patella rubbing straight on the bone (I have no cartalidge left). This creates tiny little ragged edges, like thorns, which your bone then tries to heal by making more bone on top of it.  I am told sometimes they can get large  enough to need fixing but most of the time they are just irritating to your knee.
K
Posted by Jennifer (Jennifer), 8 August 2002

Heather~~~~~

My bone spur was on the trochlear and was big enough to dig a divot in the back of my patella.  I had a LR and the OS hadn't looked around when he dropped the patella on the osteophyte (the LR was to help with my lateral tilt).  The osteophyte made quite a mess of the back of my patella.  The next OS (current) did chondroplasty to get some new tissue, but I still have a divot.

The best clue that the osteophyte was a problem was that my patella was freezing in place...it is a remarkable experience

   

Do a search on the net using the term osteophyte and you may get more info...lots of heel spur stuff will come up too if you don't limit to knees.

http://orthopedics.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-osteophyte.htm

http://www.hopkins-arthritis.som.jhmi.edu/osteo/osteo_clin_pres.html

Good luck.

Jennifer
Posted by admin (The KNEEguru), 10 August 2002

I think of the arthritic knee as desperately trying to heal the damaged joint cartilage - which has very little of its own healing ability - and the underlying bone goes crazy trying to solve this dilemma. Bone is dissolved in some places (forming cysts) and then heaped up in others (forming osteophytes - which means 'bone mushroom') but all this activity is unable to solve the problem and often just makes it worse.
Posted by SarahSmile (SarahSmile), 3 February 2004

Hi Heather,

I too had a huge bone spur that was stabbing my ACL and MCL ligaments- dr removed it last week.
I am curious to learn more about them and why they develop since the dr can't gurantee that it won't grow back... Do you have any articles or more info on them?

Thanks

Sarah

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