Cartiliage Damage

D.K

Active Member
Cartiliage Damage

I toor my cartliage at the base of my femour, lateral side in my left leg. Believe it is called your femoral condyle (not 100%) but basicly had a little clean out.

A little bit of background info for anyone that can help. I am 21, 6 foot 6 and weight around the 95kg mark. I am fit, reasonably healthy (do drink a little too much and eat some rubbish but I am a uni student come on). I play cricket and Aussie Rules. I have more injuries then what my whole family has had combined, list is large.

Basicly on saturday I batted for about an hour, came off and my knee has just started to ache like before when I did my damage. I am worried that something more serios is going on but I am hoping it will settle down over the next few days. After the op first time my quad muscle wasted away and well basiclly i need to build it up.

What exercises for my knee? and does anyone have any tips on the type of aerobic exercise that I can do without putting too much strain on my knee.

-going to the physio this week so i am sure he will give me some tips but any help would be appreciated-
 
Re: Cartiliage Damage

I'd suggest going to a sports injury specialist, rather than a physio. While the physio should be good for some general rehab, they're not always the most understanding about our compulsion to HAVE to play sport ASAP...

Liz is the qualified (p)rehab specialist here. So i'll leave injury and risk management to her. But as nothing more than an e-expert, this would be one of the few times that i'd consider machine- isolation excercises relatively necessary, especially at first. Leg extentions to rebuild the strength of the quad, and ensure that it's fully functional and firing right.

Once you can guarentee that its firing right, and you've negated the possibility of reinjuring it. I'd jump into quad-intensive strength work. I'd be basing work outs specifically around low volume, high intensity front squats (i.e. sets of 3*5 reps or 5*3 reps). Starting at a relatively low weight, but adding weight (between 1.25 and 2.5 kgs) each session. If you've lost size and strength in one quad, you've probably also lost size and strength in the same hammy as well. So you can balance front squat work with roman or stiff legged deadlifts. You're not really optimally build for back squats.

That all said, I know Liz is a huge fan of single leg work (for a good reason, too), so one legged pistol squats, roman split squats or walking lunges would be provide a great platform.
 
Re: Cartiliage Damage

This is a difficult one D.K and I would really need to know a lot more before I could comment.

As you mention the lateral femoral condyle, we are talking hyaline cartilage and not the fibrocatilage (menisci). This cartilage needs to cope with repetitive mechanical forces up to 65 times your body weight! As the hyaline cartilage is responsible for shock absorption and reducing friction and does not have any ‘food’ supply, to speak of, other than from the synovial fluid you have to be really careful.

How was the original damage caused?
Are we talking superficial lesions or deep lesions?
Can you confirm we are not talking osteochondritis dissecans?
Is there any locking or giving away?
Is there any blood in the knee?

As it is not easy to get a clear cut clinical diagnosis in this area due to ambiguous symptoms, small lesions can be missed with x-ray and even an MRI does not always give the whole picture.

Did you have an arthroscopy?
When you say, ‘…little clean out’, do you mean lavage and debridement?

Everything MV! says is great but one thing you also need to consider is that we are not just talking about quad/ham wastage. In this kind of injury, there is also wastage, inhibition, reduced ROM and/or tenderness of the whole area so you will need to build up strength and stability about the knee joint as well.

Physios are great, I have great admiration for most of them but they are restricted by not having strength and conditioning qualifications although some do. If the one you are going to does not, take MV!’s advice and seek out a sports therapist.
 
Re: Cartiliage Damage

Thanks Liz and MV! I will try and give you some more information.

It occured in April and I was back playing Austtralia rules about July. The operation was okay they just cleaned it up smoothed areas over. But i had some swelling and quite a bit of bleeding 2 weeks post surgery which meant another week of doing nothing.

How was the original damage caused? caused by turning and twisiting while playing australian rules football. As i thought it was a knock and thought it would be fine with some ice. It would swell up quite large each time I ran on it but probably continued to run on it for anothr 3 weeks before I had it checked out

Are we talking superficial lesions or deep lesions? I think I know what you mean here but the issue was a little bit of roughness. I will say that the surgeon in Melbourne went in blind knowing their was damage in their and I had cartliage tear somewhere. SO yes i had an arthoscopy I trust his judgement, my old man (who happens to be a GP) trusted his judgement etc [I have spoken to my dad at great lenghts about the knee but I am always after different opinions as stupid as this sounds because I am his son he doesn't get al serious with me when he probably should]


Can you confirm we are not talking osteochondritis dissecans? What do you mean here?


Is there any locking or giving away? This occured only twice when I first did this and at the moment it has been pretty good again. Its just the same feeling within the knee like it is a knock on the knee with dull pain


Is there any blood in the knee? Heaps first time around and I have just noticed that perharps it is swelling up again. They stuck a needle in there and drew out two massive syringes of blood, talking 10 or 20 mL i believe quite substantial this was after the operation as well rouhgly 3 weeks after it. My knee is also nearly always HOT, hot to touch and hot to feel.

Here is a little more info thanks again Liz I like what is being said and am taking valuable information away.
 
Re: Cartiliage Damage

D.K;273537 said:
... I will say that the surgeon in Melbourne went in blind knowing their was damage in their and I had cartliage tear somewhere. SO yes i had an arthoscopy I trust his judgement, my old man (who happens to be a GP) trusted his judgement etc.

The best form of diagnosis; no matter what tests are done beforehand, it will always be 'blind'.

D.K;273537 said:
Can you confirm we are not talking osteochondritis dissecans? What do you mean here?

I don't like doing this because I don't like to worry people unnecessarily but it sounds like you want all the information. Take a look at Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD) in Depth - Knee and discuss it with your Dad. I am not for one minute suggesting you are suffering from this but I would really like you to eliminate it before I give you any rehabilitation exercises.
 
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