Knee surgery/injury ?

Dunno is this is the correct forum, but here goes!

Mama Scooterbug had knee surgery (arthroscopic) months ago to clean out her knee - torn miniscus, shaved off some bone, got rid of chunks of bone/cartilidge in her knee etc. She had a rougher than expected recovery, but faithfully did all of her exercises and PT, and got the blessing of both her Surgeon and PT person to come skiing.

She has now skiied only a couple of light days, taken days off, spent days resting, icing, heating, elevating, and taking Aleve .................. and it is very swollen, she can barely walk, and is in a ton of pain!

Has anyone else had a reaction like this to a simple knee surgery? The entire family has gimpy knees (Papa will have a replacement soon, Bro had the same surgery years ago, and my knees are still recovering from the beating I gave them doing sports) but we have never had this level of a problem - rest, ice, meds, and PT would show results.

She is very healthy/active and good about doing her exercises, has never had a problem like this in her life, and was specifically told that skiing would not hurt her knee! :idontno:

As a veteran of multiple knee scopes and one total knee replacement, her knee will never be the same even after surgery. The only thing I can recommend is more strengthening of the large muscles around the knee through weight training. :idontno:

She isn't trying to do anything but a mild version of what she's been doing for a quarter century. No moguls, short days of cruising runs, only one powder day.

She's gone from a healthy daily regimen of PT exercises, calisthenics, biking, and walking to major pain & swelling and a limp that would make a peg-legged pirate proud. :idontno:

Sorry to hear about Mother Scooter. She just may need to rest now and then have a long strength training session before she tries to resume her more strenous activities. I have no experience with this, just wanted to comment and let you know we are concerned.

Did she recently take a long plane trip, such as to get to the skiing destination? Even if it has been, say, 3 months since her surgery, she could have developed a blood clot due to being inactive on the plane. Hope that's not her problem. Here's a link: http://ortho.muhealth.org/hipandknee/clots.htm

The husband of one of my colleagues died of a blood clot a few weeks after simple arthroscopic knee surgery. He was in his mid-thirties.

No, she hasn't been on a plane since spring and they had her on aspirin for 6 weeks post-surgery to prevent any clots.

It is definitely aggravated by skiing, but they said that skiing wasn't going to be a problem and she got her knee "back in shape" prior to the trip w/ PT and resume dher normal regime.

Thanks for the suggestions! :wave:

Per the doctor today, they think she seriously hurt it somehow, that it isn't related to the surgery - so now she's on crutches (with cool spiked ends for the snow/ice) w/ a big ol' knee brace and is going back tomorrow for an MRI since X-rays didn't show anything. :(

I have a totally screwed up miniscus on my left knee--my ATL orthepidic doctor said I would have to just live with it. I do know that I have no problems with long biking rides, spin class, etc. AS LONG AS THE MOVEMENT and exercise is in a straight forward, linear fashion.

Not a skiier here, but am envious of MommaSB, but with the pivoting of the knees and legs in that particular sport be part of the problem? And forget golf-- I did the WII version and almost had to go the the Emergency room!

I am glad to hear you got momma to a doctor. Always the best choice.

I would never go to anyone other than Dr. Lemak in Birmingham. I went through a year of bad diagnoses and bad advice before I found him. I had the same procedure done as you describe. He went in, fixed me up, got me into PT. I got to workout next to John Smoltz who had just been treated by Lemak's partner, Dr. Andrews. It is great to know that your doctor is going to treat a weekend warrior with the same level of care as a rock star pitcher. http://www.lemaksports.com/lawrence-j-lemak-md/

Ditto on Dr. Lemak and any dr. practicing with him. He did my rotator cuff repair 6 yrs. ago. Doctors in Destin didn't think they could put it back together, but I haven't had any problems with Lemak's surgery. Good luck on the knee. I've been scoped and then partial knee replacement. Been 3 yrs. and it still hurts like hale!!!!!

Keep your fingers crossed - we have now hit the wall of "health insurance" which doesn't want to pay for her MRI!

Apparently even though she had to go to the ER, is on crutches, in an immobilizing brace, has a script for Vicodin, will probably need surgery, and it will be weeks until she can see her doctor ......... they don't want to pay for it because since they were too full w/ emergencies to do it yesterday it is now "outpatient."

I am not being allowed near the phone. :angry:

Find a different doctor, especially if this doc who can't see her for weeks is the one who performed the surgery. She, or you, will have to become her advocate. Do not take no for an answer. You can also negotiate with the insurance companies and push them to cover expenses. Often times it is simply persistance that will get you through the doors and treated.
A trip to the ER and no follow up for two weeks? Tha is absolutely not right. Did they explain why they were making her wait?

Because she didn't get the MRI the same day (only because they didn't have room in the schedule because people were injuring themselves like crazy on the ski hills) they consider it non-emergency and outpatient - and her health insurance doesn't cover any non-emergency out of state care. And because she was too nice and didn't want to overstate her problem when dealing w/ the insurance people they already have it down as non-emergency (despite my protests in the background).

We have been on the phone all day (she REALLY loved having to go back to the ER to sign a release form so they could send her medical records to her home doctor after being recalled for her MRI) and are now running into the New Year's holiday hours.

Latest plan is for her to schedule a consult with an ortho at home tomorrow (already has the required referral from her doc) and then maybe fly home if necessary to expedite the situation (still cheaper than a minimum $2000-2500 MRI).

Either way, no more skiing for her and I have a very unhappy patient on my hands who keeps claiming that her crutches and her keep ending up in separate locations by "magic"!

No, she hasn't been on a plane since spring and they had her on aspirin for 6 weeks post-surgery to prevent any clots.

It is definitely aggravated by skiing, but they said that skiing wasn't going to be a problem and she got her knee "back in shape" prior to the trip w/ PT and resume dher normal regime.

Thanks for the suggestions! :wave:

I am really surprised they told her skiing would be no problem.

My husband had the same surgery and his Ortho told him, he hoped he was not a skier because those days were over. That skiing is very hard on even healthy knees and only a young professional skier who is willing to concentrate daily with exercise specific to skiing can regain the use after major surgery. That your post operation therapy would totally have to be geared toward what would be needed to ski.

I hope she is better soon. Even walking and climbing stairs bothers my hubbie at times.

We'll have to see - she's going to the doctor back home first thing monday and if she has to do massive rehab to ski, she will!

She doesn't do inactive well - my battles w/ her over the last several days have gotten pretty funny, especially when I threatened to cut her alcohol & chocolate if she was worried about her calorie intake/being inactive and told her amputation was not a valid option because it would puck up her shoe shopping. 😀

We'll have to see - she's going to the doctor back home first thing monday and if she has to do massive rehab to ski, she will!

She doesn't do inactive well - my battles w/ her over the last several days have gotten pretty funny, especially when I threatened to cut her alcohol & chocolate if she was worried about her calorie intake/being inactive and told her amputation was not a valid option because it would puck up her shoe shopping. 😀

Scooter she needs to be sure and tell her Therapist she wants to ski again. They can specialize her exercises for that type of movement.

Good luck to her.