Hi guys
I had severe brakes mostly to my knee region after a scooter accident in dec 08. These included:
Compound spiral fracture distal femur
Comminuted fractures of lateral femoral condyle
Comminuted fractures through the tibial plateau extending to the proximal tibial shaft and proximal fibula
Comminuted fractures in patella
Pins and plates were used to stabilise knee and femur and an external fixator was put on for 4-5 months for straightening and stabilization. After i had it taken off, they found one of the fragments of bone in my knee had come loose and so they operated to reattach it. I did not walk unaided for atleast 4 months. 3 months after the frame was taken off it was noticed that from my
knee down, i appeared to have angulation of about 10 degrees. At this point in time they discovered that due to lack of blood supply a large segment of my lateral femoral condyle had died and was disintegrating, hence the increase in angulation. i was put on a donor list for a non irridated bone allograft which is very particular and only been performed once before in Queensland. It is not common in Australia at all. The donor bone has to be very specific to my case. As the months past, i noticed my leg was angling more and the doc said it was now at 15 degrees. that was back in jan. they can't do anything though except wait for a suitable donor for this bone graft and don't want ot risk putting another frame on incase the bone graft becomes available and i have infections
from frame and can't have the op. so they said to wait. I went back and saw my surgeon, internationally renowned surgeon Dr Kevin Tetsworth, and when i said it was feeling more 'crunchy, painful and less stable they said that my cartilage on the tibial side was likely wearing down and that the bones that are all healed but different shapes are likely rubbing more so on each other. As he wants to do the bone allograft, he does not want to do any surgery to prevent it from getting worse as the bone allograft willl be used to replace most of the distal end of my femur anyway.
Has anyone here had a non irridated bone allograft, and if so how did it go?
Currently i can only get about 85 degree bend in my knee, they think that is mostly bone structure that is preventing it from bending further and also a bit of tissue. It's been able to bed this far and no further for the past 9 months or so. So it took from 8 December when i had the accident to about august / september the folowing year to get this far. It is still very painful to walk on when i am doing more long distance walking like grocery shopping or waling to the letterbox, otherwise when i 'm in my unit at home i only have to walk a few meteres at a time and so it's not as bad.
I have also found that even 13 months after geting my external fixator removerd, in some of the old pin hole sites, i am still quite tender. Is this the case for broken bones and scars to remain painful years later?
Apprecieate any feed back
hanks
Tracey
