SHIFTED KNEE CAP - "HURT'S"

[jascyoc]

I recently had a total knee replacement last April.  I finished my therapy and all was good till about 2 months ago.  Now, when I say, "all is good", I still had aches of course, but what happened after that was really painful.  I kept having alot of pain and found out that my knee cap had shifted to the left about 1 - 2 inches over.  I'm currently going to therapy to attempt to place it back.  I've been going for
2 months to therapy of extense excercises, but no success.
I ask my surgeon today and he metioned that cutting of the tendon would help.  The tendon is to tight and therefore, it is holding back the knee cap from going into place and that's where I'm getting all of the pain.  He said that it's a 6 wks. recovery and I would be fine.  All of the mechanic part of the new knee is fine, it's just the knee cap.

I'm ready to do this, but scared a little.

Please help,

Thanks, Jim

[Silkncardcrafts]

Hi Jim,

That sounds very painful what your knee cap has been doing. I've had knee cap problems for a long time, so know what it's like.

If you are not totally sure about it, I would be getting a second opinion. I would have thought an operation like that would at least take several months to recover from. Just some food for thought.

[Gill1960]

Hi Jim

I had bilateral patellofemoral (kneecaps/tochler groove) replacements in July this year. Has several complications (Clots/infection in scar), got through these and started physio about 4 weeks later than normal.

My left kneecap was crunching & grinding and giving me more pain than the other knee and the knee on the whole was a different shape.

I saw my consultants registrar every week for the first 7 weeks (to check infection) mentioned it to him and he just said down to swelling blah blah,  said same to physio who fobbed me off as well. But I KNEW something not right.  Had OS appt and my consultant was there - talked about infection and decided no surgery needed to clear it - great;  mentioned my knee grinding - he not impressed!  Had X rays on both knee and you could clearly see that it had shifted about 1 inch to the outside (Laterally I think).  so he said that my medial capsule had stretched from loosing lots of blood and probably needed a lateral release to help stablise the kneecap.  Now I was told this was a 12 week recovery - the same time as my original surgery. I am surprised that the surgeon did not get your knee X rayed just to check on the position of the kneecap.


When they got inside my knee they found that the button on the back of the patella had been scuffing (only been on 15 weeks!!) and this needed changing - so a 30 minute op took 90 minutes - and stlll a 12 week recovery.

3 weeks on and I am walking without sticks but find that my left knee cap 'clicks and jumps' when I go from sitting down )for 20 mins or so) to standing, so am a bit worried that all is not as it should be.

I have a great physio this time and he thinks that my backside muscles and quads need strenghening and 'taught' to work properly to keep kneecap stablised.  So busy working hard on that but I still have a niggling doubt that something wrong - probably me being paranoid cos had loads of problems in july. 

Anyway due to see surgeon on Dec 18 so I only hope he is there.

Bit long winded, sorry

Gill