This morning I drove into Concord to visit my orthopedic doctor for my knee. In general, not much has changed. My PCL is still torn, and there is not much they can do about it. The PCL is a fan-shaped ligament and it is not as easy to repair as the ACL is. Thus, doctors usually won't operate on a PCL...There are just too many small segments that would be nearly impossible to repair without making things worse.
The doctor offered me a cortisone shot, which I turned down. I have had them before, and they really don't do much for my knee. Uflexa shots were also a disappointment, Neither treatment really targets the PCL, thus they are a bit of a waste. The pain in my knee isn't what really bothers me. I have grown used to it. What bothers me is the lack of stability I have when I am doing karate. Good balance and side to side movement is very important in karate. Certain movements now lead me to lose my balance and in extreme cases, throws my knee out for a moment (essentially, this is when the bones hit a nerve and I lose strength in the knee for a time). I usually hit the ground when this happens unless I have something I can grab a hold of quickly. Continuing on with my physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around my knee was his only recommendation. For a long time, I have felt that my knee brace was essentially useless. It doesn't give me a lot of support when I turn my knee and it basically sits like a dead weight on my leg. It turns out I was right! At the end of my visit, I told the doctor I wanted to put on the brace and show it to him because I thought it really did little to help me. After putting it on he agreed with me, and called in their brace specialist to look at my brace. The specialist took one look and said that the brace was bent out of shape and that the hinges were essentially locked into a position where I couldn't get full movement with my leg. Instead of helping me, it was actually cutting my range of motion. She also felt that a different model, better designed for the type of sport I do would help me to have better balance. They would also add padding to the exterior to lessen the chance that someone else will get hurt if they accidentally kick my brace, which happens from time to time. All said, while my knee isn't getting "fixed" my use of the knee should improve with the new brace. The new brace, coupled with my physical therapy exercises should allow me to eventually get back some of my side to side movement as well as some of my balance. The old brace was so bent that it did not support the knee when I bent it during a pivot movement. The new brace will! All said, I will be very happy with this outcome if it works as advertised.
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