dislocated knee question?

Question

i dislocated my knee six weeks and 3 days ago ago. it went back into place itself. i have seen a doctor who gave me a few simple exercises to do. the swelling has gone down a reasonable ammount. however it is still slightly swollen. i stopped using the crutches 4 days ago but i am wearing a knee support while walking around. i still have problems bending my knee.

i was wandering:

how long it will be until i can get a full bend?
how long it will be until the swelling goes fully down?
is there anything i can do to repair my knee?
how long it will be until i can start playing sport?

if you could awnser any of these questions i would be very grateful.
any other useful information will be apprecated

Answer 1

Hi,

How did you dislocate your knee cap? How old are you? I am assuming you mean you dislocated your knee cap?

The reason I ask: depending upon whether it was traumatic or otherwise, and dependent upon you age, the treatment will slightly vary.

Most importantly, you need to decrease the swelling. Use ice - 10 minutes on every hour. Do not use heat! It can take up to 2-3 weeks for the majority of the swelling to go down.

The swelling inside your knee will be stopping the knee bending. Until that fully goes down, you will have a limited knee bend. I had knee surgery when I was 14 and 15 years of age, and sometimes it swells up according to what I do or if I twist it the wrong way. That was 22 years ago!! Swelling inside the knee (even only a teaspoon of fluid) will also affect the strength of the thigh muscles, so decreasing the swelling in the knee is a real priority.

Returning to sports: that is a tough question - depends upon the type of sport. You need to strengthen the inner thigh muscles and stretch the outer thigh muscles. Tough to really describe and you should get a physical therapy evaluation to teach you this correctly. To be technical, you need to build up the vastus medialis oblique muscle and stretch out the iliotibial band. This is assuming that your knee cap (patella) dislocated inwards and not outwards.

Try to wean yourself off the brace slowly and only use for sporting activities or when you know you will be on it for long periods. Long term use of the brace will actually weaken the thigh muscles, making your problem worse.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Do the exercises that your doctor gave you to do, this is most most important in getting your knee to limber back up again. Stretch stretch stretch!!!

Swelling, that knee may always know swell every time you do anything with it.

if your knee keep dislocating, which hopefully it won't but if it does, you can see an ortho you can do a patella realignment. It isn't a very nice surgery, but I hear they have come a long way since I have had them done on both my knees.

As far as sports. Go with what your doc says. You definately do not want to get back in to it early and totally screw up a whole season of sports cause you went back to early. Take your time, go to some Physical therapy, wear your brace to keep yourself stabalized!!

Good luck!

Answer 3

Didn't you ask your doc these questions? However - healing is different for everyone. Did you get an MRI ordered to see if any tearing is present? Have you iced it to help with the pain and swelling?....Go see an Orthopedic Specialist who specializes in sports medicine for the best care...Good Luck!