Hello,
I just found this forum and there really seems to be a lot of knowledge here! Hopefully there's advice for me as well here.
I'm a 22 year old male from Finland, currently in Germany, where I'll be working until end of August.
BackgroundMy story starts on 10th January 2006. It was like any other day; I was down at the gym (had been training for about 5 years, the last one quite determinately) working out my legs. I started with squats. I made a series of 5 repetitions on 90kg, followed by another one on 4 repetitions. I had trained using this weight for about a year. I felt some slight pain in my right leg, but I didn't think about it, and went on. On the next repetiotion I felt great pain and barely managed to get up with a lot of help of my left leg. I realized that I wasn't going to do anymore squatting that day. I tried to do some really light leg extensions, but only contracting the muscles was enough for the pain to be unbearable.
This was the last time I trained the legs heavily and also the last time I didn't feel any pain in my knee(/leg).
Every time I bend my leg more than ~90 degrees (eg. the squat movement) I feel pain, and sitting in (narrow) benches causes pain after a while. Often when I fully extends my leg, there's a popping sound and afterwards it feels better fo a while. The same thing goes for bending it fully backwards towards the bottom.
I've been seeing a lot of different doctors since that, and the knee has been examined by ultrasound as well as with MRI.
MRI:I've tried my best to translate the MRI results into English:
"09.08.2006
Opinion:
Axial T1, sagital T2FS, PD, Medec, DESS, coronal Medec.
Very mild hydropsis, no Baker's cyst. ACL, PCL, MCL and LCL normal. No meniscus rapture. At the patella and its upper edge where quadriceps tendon is attached a mild oedema, but the tendon looks intact. At the patella cartilage, at the center a mild signal change, but the find is very small, no clear chondromalacia. At the cartilage of the medial condyl of the femur a similar change, this one also rather mild.
Find:
Meniscuses intact. Mild cartilage changes, no clear chondromalacia.
Patella's and quadriceps insertion mild oedema."
ArthroscopyAfter this, we decided to make an arthroscopy:
"27.10.2006
In Spin. anaesthesia is the right knee stable in both ap and side directions. Sotrz arthroscop provided with 30o optics is inserted anterolaterally. The outflow needle through the upper lateral recess and working portal antermedially. The joint fluid slightly muddy, no synovit, no foreign objects. A big medial plica exists that acctually is suprapatellar attached the upper edge of the patella and stretches towards the medial wall. This plica is very large and possibly explains the patient's problems and is therefore totally excised.
Somewhat chondromalci on the patella surface, nothing to revide. The tibiofemoral surfaces are both laterally and medially fine so as the ACL and PCL and both meniscusees are tested with hooks. The knee is rinsed well. On 3 portals tape. Knee bandage is attached.
DG: Syndroma plica medialis genu dx. M25.5"
However, I felt that didn't help. I lost a lot of muscles due to this and the problems remaines, so acctually things got worse.
It took me a long time, but finally I accepted that I would have to give up my passion, weight-lifting. The knee kept on bothering me, but the doctor told me that the knee looked good and that there was nothing more to do. I've gone to physiotherapists, tried to do rehab-training with weights, swimming and water gymnastics, but my problem remains.
Recently:Three weeks ago I played some relaxed soccer here (I should have realized that I'm not suited for that..) and felt some slight pain in my
left leg! The day after the condition of it was basically the same as the right knee, only worse. It hurts really bad when I sit down and I have to either throw me down or assist with my arms.
The other thing that has been bothering me since I came here (I've walked a lot more here than at home) is an extreme feeling of exhaustion in my
right leg. Most of the time it is in the back of the leg (hamstrings) , but sometimes also front (quadriceps) and behind the knee cap. I wouldn't call it pain, it just feels very powerless and for instance walking upstairs makes the leg feel really weak.
Last week I decided to go to the doctor here (an orthoped). He had me lie down and pressed above the knee caps, which made me bend my back in pain. He said it was clearly problems with the patella. He recommended me to train my adductors, which should help. I don't know, I've (earlier) been training really hard and look where it has got me.. I must admit that the adductors haven't been in focus, but I still find hard to believe that this would cure me. I told him this as well, and he said that when I want to he can a minor surgery called
"lateral release", which he said helps about 75% of the patients. If it still didn't help another surgery could be made, "from the other side" (I didn't really understand).
I should still add, that here in Germany I've an insurance from work and an additional Finnish travel insurance, so surgery would be free. In end of August I return to Finland and will no longer have the possibilty of free surgery.
