Ice hockey Injury Question

[cj190 0]

Hi all, my knee cap dislocated at a game on Sat (came out a bit, but the brace kept if from going all the way), it's the third time it's happened in like 13 years of playing. I was wondering if there are any other people out there with the same problem, and I am wondering how you dealt with it. It hasn't happened for like 5 years, and I can't remember what I did last time to come back, let alone how long I stayed off of it. Right now I am on crutches to keep it from getting any more swollen. Thanks.

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

Hi all, my knee cap dislocated at a game on Sat (came out a bit, but the brace kept if from going all the way), it's the third time it's happened in like 13 years of playing. I was wondering if there are any other people out there with the same problem, and I am wondering how you dealt with it. It hasn't happened for like 5 years, and I can't remember what I did last time to come back, let alone how long I stayed off of it. Right now I am on crutches to keep it from getting any more swollen. Thanks.

Due to an old surfing accident I sustained back home in Ireland, my kneecap pops out every now and again. I was surfing on a sandbar, in big waves, and got hammered, leg got stuck in sandbar and bent about 90 degrees in the way a knee should not bend.

Basically, some of the meniscus was damaged and is now dead. I could have keyhole surgery to repair it, but it happens so infrequently now, I have decided to just leave it. Immediately after the injury I was on crutches for about 3 weeks.

Since then, when it pops out, I can pop it back in place myself, it hurts like hell to pop out/back in, but it's only happened to me twice in the last 3 years so it's not so big a deal.

But you are probably looking at some arthroscopic surgery to fix it proper

[sand21 0]

Once the swelling and pain subsides, you can start strengthening your medial quadricep which can help prevent patellar dislocations. This is can be done by extending the knee fully while doing leg extension or leg press type exercises. Make sure you extend the knee completely because strenthening of this muscle comes from the last 15 degrees of extension.

Hope this helps.

[hhojman 0]

I apologize but first the necessary disclaimer: This is a complex problem and what follows is an overtly simplified explanation. I have not examined you and I cannot, and will not, make specific recommendations to you personally. You should consult an orthopedic/sports doctor and follow his/her advise.

I am a physician and have the same problem.

Because of this, I researched the issue extensively. The bottom line is that there is no treatment that appears to be better than the others. You might read a paper recommending surgery while the next one says that surgery is not better than strengthening your quadriceps.

Also talking to several specialists I got very dissimilar answers.

I can tell you what worked for me but please understand that what worked for me might not work for you.

Straightening the quadriceps acts as a knee stabilizer. I always dislocated the knee cap (patella) when my quadriceps was not in good shape. The knee cap tends to pop to the lateral side. One portion of the quadriceps, the medial part, opposes this by pulling the patella it the other direction. As sand21 mentioned, this part of the quadriceps is strengthened while exercising the last 15-20 degrees of the leg extension.

You can check some exercises here:

http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/Weaknesses.html#anchor13238820

I hope it works. Good luck,

H.

[Chadd 916]

I was told to work on my quads when I had that problem in HS.