knee injury to a young athelet - Burns & Injuries Message Board

allie58 · 12-24-2004, 10:15 PM

Hi
Ok i am 16 and a sophmore in high school.
Last year i hurt my knee during a basketball game.
This is how the story goes:
I was go to the basket for the lay up and a girl came and hit me from the side and i could feel my knee/kneecap go from side to side. I fell down and started screaming of pain. My coach carried me off the court and had me ice it. i iced it when i got home then the next morning i tried standing up and my knee was stuck in like a 90 degree angle. i couldnt move it. i tried streching it both in and out and it hurt so bad. so i got to school and coach tried getting me to go to the DR but i know they would just tell me i cant play so i wouldnt go. well it took a day or two to for me to be able to play on it. but then it would give out all the time. like i would be dribbling the ball and i would just fall down because my knee wouldnt hold me. about a week after that it filled up with fluid.
well now its a year later and the fluid is gone but comes back once in a while. But my knee still gives out. Sometimes i feels like there is nothing holding it there, like its just floating or something. Can you help? I really dont want to go to the DR unless i know there is truthfully something really wrong with it. Im very dedicated to my sports and it would kill me if i couldnt play them.

Grey Matter · 12-26-2004, 12:37 AM

sounds like it serious enough to consider going to see a doctor...i personally wouldn't have waited for so long. a year? cmon go see a doctor theres no reason for you to carry on like this.

allie58 · 12-26-2004, 10:11 AM

But see im a afraid of what they will tell me....like i cant play

purple2067 · 12-27-2004, 07:03 PM

But what if you continue playing on it and do permanent damage? Chances are you may already have done some permanent damage by not seeing a doctor right away. What did your parents say? Why didn't they take you to the emergency room, or at least make you see an orthopedist?

It is silly for you not to be seen by a doctor. You may not believe this now, but your health is more important than sports. You need to see an orthopedist who specializes in sports injuries. When I was in high school I knew two girls who had knee injuries. One had scoliosis of the spine and so her whole body was thrown off. She stepped down the wrong way and dislocated her knee. She went to the emergency room and they set it and put her in a brace, and recommended surgery to make sure that it heals permanently. Her parents declined the surgery, and she dislocated her knee several more times. To this day it still gives her major problems. But she's an adult now and she's afraid, and won't go for the surgery. The other girl that I knew was a basketball player and a gymnast. She dislocated her knee playing basketball. She had the surgery to repair it (involving tightening the ligament around the knee joint, I think.) She was in a brace for about a month or two after the surgery, and went for some physical therapy, and then went back to playing again.

I am certainly not making a diagnosis, but if you say that you could feel your knee moving from side to side after the impact, it is quite possible that you dislocated it. By not having it set properly, it probably didn't heal right and is still moving in and out of place. Whatever it is, it's nothing to fool around with.

I never dislocated my knee, but I did injure it. I have MS, and last year I fell and landed on the hard concrete, right on my knee cap with all of my weight on it. It immediately swelled up and bruised, and I could barely walk. I went to the hospital and they told me that they could only see a lot of swelling on the x-ray, and it was probably just a sprain. I believed them and I walked (hopped) around for a month with extreme pain. I thought that after a month, if it was a sprain it should be feeling better. So, I went to see an orthopedist and he sent me for an MRI. I had a chip fracture and tendon and ligament damage. 3 months of physical therapy twice a week put my knee back to almost 100%.

Please don't wait any longer to go to the doctor. I am surprised that your coach is letting you play. If I were him/her, I would tell you that you couldn't play until I had a doctor's note that you are OK.