September Knee Update - Another MRI on the Way

Well, the knee rehab was proceeding along swimmingly until about midway through the month. I was sitting down on the couch, and folding my bad leg under my good leg as I had been doing fine for weeks now. Pop. It was not a major pop like the initial injury, just the sort of joint pop that happens from time to time to everyone. But this one was accompanied by pain, and when I tried to stand back up, I could not straighten out my leg fully - it was painful and felt tight on the outside of my knee. I flexed my knee a while and walked around gingerly and after about 20 minutes it was fine again.

Didn't think much of it until it did it again that night, when I tried to stand up from sitting at my computer. When it happens, there is a lot of tightness and pain in the last 5 degrees of extension when trying to straighten my leg out fully. I flex the knee for a bit and let it relax, and in a few minutes the pain and tightness completely disappears, like it never happened, and I can extend my leg fully again.

This has happened now about 10-12 times this week, so I went to the doc this morning, and sure enough, as he was bending my knee every which way, it did it again. So, the theory is one of three things: the patella is subluxating (starting to dislocate), which I don't think is likely since the pain is actually well away from the patella tendon. Two, there is a lateral meniscus tear which the MRI missed (apparently MRIs miss 20% of those). Or three, there is a loose body, like a fragment of bone that broke off and is getting wedged into a space it shouldn't. I'm hoping for the third, since that's the easiest to fix.

Either way, I'm awaiting a call to tell me when the new MRI will be, so we can attempt to find the cause of the problem. Other than that, the knee is actually doing pretty well, it feels strong and rehab was going well. Now I have to scale back my rehab while still trying to keep the knee getting strong, so this will be a challenge. However, since I have no problems in any position other than full extension, I should be able to continue a lot of exercises that I have been doing, and keep the knee on track until we figure out the problem here.