I survived 4 years of soccer (Varsity high school and competetive summer leagues and tournies) with no problems. A good friend of mine had knee problems, but I never thought it would happen to me. Then my first year in college, I was playing indoor and was running on direction and stopped to turn back and my knee gave out.
I was still covered by parents insurance at that point, so I went to the doctor, and ended up getting an "arthogram" I believe they called it: inject your knee with ink and then do an X-ray (not MRI). It showed I had a "stretched" ACL but not torn, so I just did my PT and went back to playing as normal. After that it gets blurry, as I re-injured it so many times, I don't even remember. I was no longer on the parents insurance and didn't have any health insurance of my own, so I never went to the doctor. I just went through the same rehab proccess that I did the first time and then went back to playing again. Eventually, I broke down and bought a heavy duty donjoy brace and that seemed to solve the problem.
Maybe another 4 years later, I went to play hockey and my brace didn't fit under my shin guards and pants etc. so I foolishly opted not to wear it. I wasn't doing anything when it happened, just skating, no one hit me or anything...I was just skating and then I felt something weird and sat down on the ice to check it out. My knee would dislocate so often, it was routine for me. I would sit down, hold my knee cap and staighten my leg. There would be a crack and then all was well again. But this time there was no crack, in fact I couldn't even straighten it at all!
So I was forced to go to the doctor even though I knew I would have to pay for it out of my own pocket (which was rather empty). After a couple doctors visits, an imobilizer, a pair of crutches and an MRI, I was already looking at a couple thousand dollars that I didn't have.
When the doctor showed me the MRI, he was nearly laughing (in disbelief) as he said, "This is where the collaterals should be, but are not. This is where the ACL should be, but is not. This little triangle over here is a piece of cartilage that is wedged in the joint so that you are unable to straighten it." He said that probably I had one by one tore each of the ligaments, but since they were never repaired, they just withered away completely. Without the ligaments, the knee was unstable and that lead to the cartilage tear.
A full reconstruction would have cost too much since I didn't have insurance, so I opted to just scope it to remove the torn cartilage, so I could at least walk again. The surgeon and the anesthesiologist were both very cool and did their part of the surgery for FREE!!! But still with the other costs I still ended up owing around $3000 more on top of the other costs, not to mention I couldn't work for about 4 months. That was a rough time!!! I did, however, get back to work and slowly paid the bill off in monthly payments.
I did my rehab and was back in shape soon enough and vowed never to play anything without my brace again. That was probably 1991 and I never had another problem (with THAT knee) even though it has NO ligaments and only part of the cartilage...just meat and bone. I played hockey, basketball and soccer with my donjoy, no probs for many years (to this day for that matter--knock on wood).
As life changed, I stopped playing soccer and started coaching instead and also got more into hockey, surfing, skateboarding and biking and still had no problems. But I was missing playing soccer so I started looking for a rec team to play on...instead of a soccer team, I found a Gaelic Football (Irish version of Aussie rules) team and started playing. Once again, no problems, I was wearing my brace and all was good. Then in our first game, I was on the field for like 5 minutes and was running along with a girl (playing defense) and my "good" knee blew out! Once again, I was doing nothing crazy, just shaddowing the girl. I never in a million years, thought that there was any chance for my right knee to go. Man, life is just not fair!!!
So once again, I rehabbed on my own (still no insurance) and slowly made it back to Gaelic practice, this time with 2 braces. It seemed to be fine, but then I went up for a high ball and when I landed, the knee went again. That was when I decided I would just stop playing field sports altogether. So anyone want to buy a nice pair of cleats?
But that was fine with me, I would just stick to my other sports. Life seemed to be back to normal again. Then one day, I was paddling out (surfing) and I ducked through a wave and as it crashed on the backs of my legs it F*çK!ng blew my "good" knee AGAIN! Now this really sucks, I have never in my entire life heard of anyone blowing their knee, not from actually surfing, but just paddling out? This was getting ridiculous. This time it was cartilage and ACL. Probably the ACL was torn from football and the joint was unstable due to that, then the wave just helped the cartilage to tear.
This time I did the full reconstruction with auto hamstring graft, and they repaired a large meniscus tear. Rehab was slow and hard compared to other people I saw in PT. Maybe it was the meniscus repair. I'm told that can make a huge difference in your recovery. Compared to the first scope, this was living hell. For an entire month, I never slept more than 45 minutes before awaking in agonizing pain to replace the ice pack (no money to get one of those icing machines). It took me 8 weeks to ditch the crutches and even then I walked with a limp for a long while. I hope I never have to do that again.
Two years after surgery, everything seemed to be going fine again. After a lot of swimming, biking and weight training, I was playing hockey again and had gone snowboarding a couple of times without a problem. Then about a month ago, I went snowboarding (just before Christmas) and although nothing extraordinary happened, the knee was quite swollen afterward and felt unstable and "crunchy". The slight pinching pain that I had before my surgery had returned and I assumed that the meniscus repair must have come undone.
Finally I am insured!!! Woo-hoo!!! So I went to the doctor and got an MRI. My ligaments are all there, but there is a slight meniscus tear and a bunch of other scar tissue growths etc. By now though, the swelling is down and the knee is feeling good and stable. I guess now I have to wait and see if it is really a problem or not. But at worst, (hopefully) I will just need a "clean up" scope, which although I'd rather not have to do it, but if I do, it's a cake walk compared to reconstruction.
Hopefully this is the end of my knee story!
P.S. Some of you might say, "Why don't you get insurance then???" But not all of us have a lot of money or jobs that provide health insurance. It's expensive and I just never could afford it. For those of you who can...be thankful that that is the case.
Update...I had my scar tissue scope about 3 weeks ago. Part of the meniscus was removed along with some scar tissue that had formed around the meniscus repair.
I think part of the it had healed and part had come undone, so that was removed. They also removed scar tissue from the femoral tunnel which was making it too tight for the graft to function properly, and widened the tunnel itself as well.
This was soooooooo much easier than the Reconstruction!!! Yippeeeee!!! I didn't need or use any of the pain meds and was walking without crutches in a couple of days and was back on the bike within a week or so. Now I'm working on ROM and extension and getting rid of the lumps where the stitches were.
Extension is pretty good. After stretching I can get my heel off the ground a bit, slightly hyper extended but not as much as the "good" knee. Haven't done that in a few years! ROM is slower and harder, but coming along.
