went back to the doc again today got a cortizone shot and the doc drained a pint of fluid out of my knee i will get the results of the bone scan next week so i'm in a lot of pain right now untill the cortizone shot takes effect and that will be sunday so i'm of my feet till then [sm=imsmilin.gif]

 

well, when my knee came apart, i went to the guy who runs pittsburgh sports medicine, and they see alot of pro athletes...i was told to go there since i played college hockey. they looked at my knee, poked it with a metal rod, and my doctor explained to a team of doctors what he thought was wrong and that was a "worst case"...unfortunately, he was right, which was proven by the MRI and other tests. i was told that i would never skate again, i might not ever be able to run again, and i would likely walk with a limp for a long time. i was told that the damage to my meniscus caused the femur to crack, and that they may not be able to fix that. i spent some 8 hours in surger...they were able to repair the bone damage, and repair the MCL and PCL...the ACL was ruptured, not torn, so pieces of it were all throughout my knee area...i now have an ACL made out of my patella tendon, woven with some space age nonsense. i have a 4 inch scar on the front of my knee, and several smaller scars, about a half inch or so, but they are hard to notice. it was a long road back, but just over a year after the sugery, i was back on the ice, skating VERY gingerly, and about 18 months after the surgery, played in my first game.

i have lost a step as far as speed, and i cannot play goaltender anymore due to the stress placed on the knee...i have also lost alot of flexibility, but that doesnt matter much since im not in goal now. the rehab was brutal, and long, and not being able to walk sucked...the pain was unbelievable for the first few days after the surgery. i was taking 3 250mg vicodan every 3 hours...for a week. 6,000 mg of vicodan only got me to the point where i was almost comfortable. as SOON as the meds wore off, any twitch in my knee would wake me up. the pain was so bad that i could barely eat, and could only sleep for the middle 2 hours or so of each dose of pain pills. i ran out of them for about 18 hours, and i was the most miserable person in the world...i was in so much pain that when i finally got my meds, i chewed them up, as i knew that they would digest faster. i even had a special knee brace that had a sort of built in water to air intercooler......it was attatched to a small cooler packed with dry ice, and i would open a series of valves, and the warm water in the brace against my knee would drain, then icy cold water woudl pump in. it was great, but it also cost something like 5000.00. the whole mess, from beginning to end cost the insurance company around 100,000...and right after, they dropped me..

however, my grandfather, who is in his 80s, had both knees replaced, and what they do is move the muscles, tendons, etc, aside, and cut the bone above and below the knee, and pull them out, and replace them. my grandfather, who hadnt walked without a cane in years, was up and around in about a week. it took me 6 months.

alot of people confused knee reconstruction with knee replacement. reconstruction is what i had with new ligaments and such. the problem with this, and what causes the long downtime is the fact that they first are cutting apart moving parts of you, and you have to wait for them to heal before you can start trying to build things up. for everyday of non-activity, the muscles in your leg are deteriorating. after a few weeks of being torn up, the leg gets very weak. since my grandfather didnt have any moving parts touched, just the bone, he only had to wait for the swelling to go down...and he was able to walk. i couldnt even bend my knee for weeks, because it was so swollen, that it would tear at the staples.

if you have any more specific questions, ill be happy to answer them..i know a bit about it...

 

thanks patick sounds like you had a rough time glad you are better my doctor does work for ut sports so he is a good doctor and he has been nice called me when i got home and asked if there was anything more he could do so i'm not used to that from a doctor so in worst case i will have to have total knee replacement but all the problems i'm having with it i will have it done if i have any questions i will hit you up lol thanks again much appreciated

 

go bionic[8D]

 

yeah i wish i could the doc sent me better pain pills and a anti-inflammatory pills. they are not making me sleepy but finally i feel no pain .so i have to make an appointment next week for the bone scan i thought they already had me an appointment . i want to know if i have to have a total knee replacement because the end of may we are going to the beach when i get back i will have the sugery i want to have a little fun first

[IMG]local://upfiles/8815/AE44CCB3BD994AC580F1460FE105F44C.jpg[/IMG]

 

well i go for the bone scan friday i thought they already did it but i was wrong so wish me luck

 

honestly, the knee replacement, meaning the actual knee itself, not the ligaments around it, seems to me to be less of an issue..my grandfather gets around better than he did before..he wishes that he had gotten them fixed sooner.

what did you do to your knee?

 

well in 2000 i was guiding a truck back and he wasn't paying attention had his tailgate down and he hit me knocked me threw a glass door the tailgate hit me in my knee crushed the cartilage. so what i understand in knee replacement the take the femur on the head cut it down to a stop sign shape replace it with a titanium ball then they take out all the old cartilage and replace that with nylon and they say now i have some ligament damage so they have to repair that too on the pic with the arrow thats the part they cut into the stop sign shape and put the titanium ball on. "edit" oh forgot they said i had ligament damage after they got the mri back so dumb me i thought they already did the bone scan

[IMG]local://upfiles/8815/61ADD233092E4D6AB3FEE8CE9EADC34B.jpg[/IMG]

 

well the first of june i go in for my total knee replacement the doc said i would spend a couple nights in the hospital then 2-4 weeks of recovery then physical therapy. the doc said i have a rupture in my acl thats why its going to taking me longer to recover so patrick was right about regular knee replacement but with the damage i have its going to take longer. so wish me luck can't wait till the first of the month ==not realy [:'(] [:'(]

 

well went to the doc again today june 16 is my d-day [:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(]