tell me about recovery from a knee injury

[lmh2402]

my brother injured his knee on monday night

he was scrimmaging in muay thai (he's been doing this and fighting competitively for several years)

i don't know the exact details, but basically he planted his left foot/leg and moved to avoid a hip check. somehow the other guy got caught on his leg and my bro's body kept moving to the right, but his left leg couldn't move

he heard a really loud pop and then he went down

the other people around the mat heard the pop and they originally thought it was his back. my brother said nothing hurt at first he just felt like he couldn't move

then he looked down and saw his left knee was basically on the outside of his leg and his lower leg was pointing out. no longer aligned. knee was clearly dislocated

then the pain kicked in

they called EMS and he was rushed uptown to the hospital. they took x-rays and said no bone damage. but very likely ligament damage.

they said to schedule an appt with an orthopedist, but to wait a week for swelling to go down

so his ortho apt is this coming monday

but he is beside himself right now.

he's stuck in his apartment - it's a walk-up brownstone, no elevator and he's on the top floor. his knee is still hurting a lot. he can't figure out how to get in or out of the shower on his own (it's a tub with a sliding door, so there's a frame all around).

he's depressed and just a mess about the prospects of not being able to train/fight moving forward

i was just wondering if anyone else has suffered knee ligament injuries. it seems like it's probably his ACL

how long did it take for you to recover? did you opt for surgery? are you able to do everything you could do before? any residual pain or weakness?

thanks

[HIU8]

I had knee surgery way back in 1995. this was for a chronic issue though--I had an extra piece of cartiledge behind my kneecap that had become frayed and it needed to be removed. I frequently had my kneecap float around though and wore a brace for years prior. I had arthoscopic surgery. It took about 8 months to fully recover (that included PT 2x a week for a couple of months aftwards also).

[lfp2n]

Is it a dislocation or ACL- we had both types of injury at our judo place recently. The dislocation was where the knee cap moved around the leg, it was incredibly painful but not that serious long-term the guy was back on the mat 3 weeks later. Ruptured ACLs of course take much longer, especially if they require surgery.

Keep my fingers crossed

[american_mama]

My DH tore his quadricep tendon (connect your thigh muscle to your knee) and had emergency in-patient surgery the next day. Granted, he did know the surgeon personally, but I am pretty sure a quad tear is always emergency surgery, so it sounds like your brother's situation is different.

Nevertheless, I am posting the link where people here gave me good advice for recovery and rehab. You might want to pm some of them individually.

http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin...hlight=surgery

My DH was not able to drive for several weeks because he could not fit his braced leg in the car. He had to sit in the backseat and enter the car backwards because it was the only way to fit in. He also got rides to work from neighbors who had a minivan with no car seats in the second row.

[Twoboos]

DH had his ACL replaced after a similar sounding injury (twist and pop sound, then fall down).

They used part of his hamstring, other option was cadaver hamstring. You could not tell that he had it replaced, except that you can feel where the screws are. The muscles have all changed themselves to do their new job.

He did pt for a while, recovery was pretty straightforward. This was probably 14 or so years ago. He still does everything, plays soccer, skis, runs. Of course he doesn't sound as extreme as your brother!! .

It really sucks though, to be injured like that and not know how it's going to got and how much functionality you'll get back.

GL to him!!