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I am sorry to hear you are going through this. My OS told me I need this as well but I have refused. I do know it was specifically written on my consent form...although it also gives authroization for any "additional procedures the Dr considers necessary or "advisable". " From my reading on this procedure, it is controversial and no longer recommended as routinely as it once was yet it seems everyone is getting it! I googled it and came across many journals (recent) where this procedure must be discussed in detail with the patient so that they understand the risk and an informed consent must be signed. It seems, however that this is rarely done. In my research I did come across someone on this board who has had the LR reversal. I put in a search of lateral release in the bulletin board..
There are doctors that do lateral release repair and there are papers on the topic.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15525935It's important to have an experienced doctor assessing your knee to determine what exactly is going on and if there are any alignment issues in addition to the potentially botched lateral release.There are people on this board who have had the lateral patellofemoral ligament reconstruction (performed in a variety of ways) and there is at least one that I know of that managed to avoid surgery and find a better quality of life through aggressive and directed exercise.http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php?topic=41314.0
This is one I think is most interesting...http://www.udel.edu/PT/clinic/journalclub/old/sojournalclub/04_05/Nov04/Lateral%20release.pdfI do remember reading somewhere that the cut should be 5 mm (?)
Did he tell you why he felt the need to do it?
I had a lateral release 9 months ago. I expected my surgeon to only clean up a band of scar tissue (medial plica) but he ended up doing a lateral release because he said I had slight patellar tilt and mild chondromalacia. Now the kneecap cartilage is worse than ever and it gets crushed within the groove during extension and flexion. I went from being a very active person and managing my pain with minor amounts of pain killers to hardly being able to walk because it feels like my kneecap is in a vice and is getting crushed. My leg also feels crooked like it is pointed inward. I have re strengthened all of the quad muscles and the knee is stable but the patellar articualting cartilage surface is getting crushed and I am on a boat load more pain killers than I was before surgery. This surgery has basically ruined my quality of life.