How to heal weak/stretched knee ligament?

Discussion in 'Injuries' started by BethuneGuy, Nov 20, 2004.

  1. BethuneGuy

    BethuneGuy Regular Member

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    It wasn't that bad until now, when I had to practice lunging, about 100-200 lunges straight. After the 30th or so, the left side of my right knee just gives, and once I go down, I can't get back up. Doctor isn't really helping, he says strengthen the muscles, but I can't even seem to access those muslces. My left leg is perfectly fine, when I do lunges with my left, I can feel the "bounce". When I do the right one, I go down, the left side of my right knee feel like it wants to "pop". I also can't hop on the right leg by itself. Somebody help me...
     
  2. ironchef

    ironchef Regular Member

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    does the knee joint hurt? or is it just unstable? you shoudl proabbly rest for at least 2 weeks...
     
  3. bighook

    bighook New Member

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    If you are unsure go see a physiotherapist .Preferably a sports physiotherapist.Ligament testing can show whether or not it is sound as well.Sometimes if you have a meniscus tear you get that giving away feeling as it is a reflex action given by the body to protect you from doing further damage.I am going throught the same problems myself and am undergoing physio treatment which consists of ultrasound, ice and tens stimulation to deal with the pain reflex so atrophy doesn't continue with the knee.A general practitioner GP doesn't specialize in these injuries and can only do limited diagnosis of the problem.A good physiotherapist can give you proper exercises for strengthening and stretching and can diagnose errors in faulty technique as well.Hope this helps and also backing off sometimes helps as well but I understand the craving for the adrenaline rush which pushes you to continue despite the pain.There is alot of good knee reference sites given in this as well.I found the jointpaininfo.com quite useful.Anyways hoping for a safe and quick recovery for myself and you as well.
     
  4. BethuneGuy

    BethuneGuy Regular Member

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    There's no pain whatsoever, just inexplicable weakness. It all started 5 years ago, after an ankle injury (ligament damage), which led to my knee buckling inwards while I was jogging. Now, I simply cannot lunge or do squats with my right leg. Believe me, I have tried those exercises to restrengthen the knee and the muscles around it. My situation is simply frustrating. The ultrasound showed that there was no tear. Yet, I still can't do the half the weights I can do with my healthy left leg. It really hinders my improvement in badminton. It's like I hit a wall, and I can't get any better.
     
  5. socko

    socko Regular Member

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    Hey man,

    Welcome to my club. I've done everything possible to strengthen the knee but any time I try to do any strengthening, my knee hurts like hell. When ever I play it feels like it's giving out.

    What exercises do you do? I do one legged squats, leg extensions, squats etc etc. But still no effect. My knee hurts and aches after a long tough game.

    Trying resting for a while, not like a week but something like a month or 2. Let the knee settle down then strengthen for another month or 2 before heading back to the footwork stuff. Give it a go, I know it's boring not playing. But I've done that and it's helped a wee bit.

    I'm going to have a chat with a doctor about something called prolo therapy. Maybe you can have a look to see if it suits you or not.

    Do let me know how you get on and if you find a miracle cure?

    Regards
     
  6. BethuneGuy

    BethuneGuy Regular Member

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    It's damn frustrating. I do all the exercises you mentioned above. It doesn't help, seriously. Mine don't really hurt, they just don't respond. If your legs are springs, my left one bounces back up after I push it down, but the right one goes down, and stays down.
     
  7. socko

    socko Regular Member

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    Whoa... dude you should go get it checked out properly mate. Just hearing that doesn't sound good. I must agree with the bloke above suggesting that you see a sports doctor or sports physio. I would suggest you lay off badminton for a wee bit. From what you are saying it sounds worst than just plain old injured tendon. Tendonistis or tedonosus is the easy diagnosis for every knee problem, but it could be something more serious. Go get it checked out before you can't play anymore.

    Let us know how you get on.

    Regards
     
  8. Jinryu

    Jinryu Regular Member

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    Are you sure that it's the ligament and not the cartiledge?

    Let me know if my condition sounds the same:

    I injured my left knee a long time ago. If i bend my left leg in such a way that it's at a 45degree angle or less, (although that's an exaggeration for explicative purposes... nowadays, I don't go less than 90 degrees anyhow) then I will 'lose power' in that leg and be unable to straighten that leg. Usually, after a left-foot-first lunge that went 'too far', I might have to actually shift my weight to my right leg just to get up, because i don't have the power to do so with just my left.

    When the situation was really bad when I first incurred the problem, bending the leg too far, even without my body weight on it, might cause the knee to 'lock'. It's wasn't that there is anything blocking the knee from extending the leg, it was more a feeling of 'powerlessness'... the metaphor in my mind is having a super powerful crank to reel in a huge weight, but it feels as if you have a mile too much of rope, or worse, the rope isn't tied, so you can rev that crank all you want before actually getting any results.

    However, just to mention, I had my knee checked out by a a few sports therapists, phisiotherapists and other doctors, had some x-rays done, the works... it was damaged cartiledge that caused the weakness. This was because I used to play volleyball, and due to impact on the inside of my left knee (the floor, during real emergency situation digging) the cartiledge on the inside of my left knee was damaged pretty bad. Ironically, because I lunge right leg first most of the time, it's the left knee that hits the ground. Anyway.

    Picture your ligaments and tendons as being set in certain areas across and around your knee-- with damaged cartiledge, in my case, the tendons and ligaments in my left knee were not confined to where they were supposed to be. Normally, carteledge not only holds your bones in alignment, but it keeps your ligaments and tendons where they offer the best leverage to the surrounding muscles. It's not exactly this simple, but imagine if i was supposed to have a ligament crossing over the front of my knee, and somehow, it ended up being on the side-- the ligament is intact, it's just muscles pulling on it gave me no effect because the ligaments were not set on the correct leverage point. Straightening my leg "manually" would reset the ligaments in place, but if i ever went to about 45 degrees, they would 'slip' (painfully, might i add!) out of place.

    So, I dont know if your situation is, as you speculate, a ligament problem or not, I'm just saying that i had similar sympthoms that were the result of cartiledge problems, and not ligment problems.

    As far as physiotherapy goes-- strengthening the leg is useful, yes. But maybe not in the way that one would expect-- if you've injured yourself, you're injured! THere's no fooling your body. Rest! Strengthing the leg doesn't mean blasting it with intesnse weight training, not until you're totally healed of those tears, anyway. And by rest, if its really ligament damage or cartiledge damage or whatever, considering your sympthoms, rest cannot be overstated. *Light exercise* will help you get circulation going that will help the repair process, if applicable, and then there are those other methods which you can look up on the forum, (glucossamine supplements, heat treatments, etc.)

    But in my case, I stopped playing volleyball competely for a few months. I underwent physiotherapy for about 2 years. Now (which is years later, might I add) I no longer go to phisio. To get your hopes up, after the original injury, I've been highly active with only minor degradation of quality of life.

    I should add that aside from playing badminton, i've done a fair share of martial arts, which is really rough on your body-- especially submission wrestling. (I've once had my spine stretched out by almost an entire inch, talk about a close call...)

    But to get to the point: okay, so you're injured. And it feels like you've hit a wall. In any form of atheltic practice, this is what can happen. This is natural: in my opinion, when it comes to serious injuries, one can indeed hit a wall. But in most cases, one can work 'around' the injury to improove in other areas. If that knee no longer wants to improove, then work on everything else. Nowadays, my left knee, I can strongly bend up to about 90 degrees. I've come to accept this as my 'safe' limit. I can go farther, and i will still have strenghth--- dare I say, i can use it as recklessly as i did when I was younger. But it will be at a price, a price that one SHOULD NOT PAY for a single game of badminton--- you owe it to your love of badminton to do what you can to be able to play as long as you can for many years to come!

    The problem people have with injuries is that, even if accidental, they happen because the body was used in a way that it shouldn't have been. Learn from it. Pay the price. And if the price is a wall that has been hit, then work with everything else you have-- i think that I've learned to work rather well, despite my injury. If anything, an injury like this that isn't TOTALLY debilitating is a small price to pay for a very vaulable lesson on the respect we owe to our bodies.

    And yes, even accidents, we don't intend them-- but that just goes to show how important prevention is in contrast to post-traumatic healing.
     
  9. Jinryu

    Jinryu Regular Member

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    Yeah, sorry about the lengthiness. My knees are one of my "big" stories, becase they've singly been perhaps the most discouraging injury i've ever gotten.

    I'd wish you luck, but you don't need luck-- just be smart about it!

    Good luck anyways, if it makes you feel better.:D_
     
  10. BethuneGuy

    BethuneGuy Regular Member

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    Thank you. Perhaps, I'll develop a game around it... Slow with deception, lol... Sounds kind of distant, with the repetoire of strokes that I have. But yeah, my knee is really frustrating me... Kind of makes me want to stop training. But my love for badminton keeps me going back.
     
    #10 BethuneGuy, Nov 21, 2004
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2004
  11. Jinryu

    Jinryu Regular Member

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    If you do stop, it's just a 'tactical retreat' to rest up.;)

    Human's are surprisingly adaptive.

    I like to think that, if some sorta superhuman athelete were injured and brought down to 'my standards', then he'd find it was a pretty bad situation. But that doesn't mean that the top player enjoys badminton any more than I do, and that doesn't mean that we both can't improve.

    It reminds me of the inspirational :crying: posts in the "What is the Meaning of Badminton" thread that's going on right about now too...
     
  12. bighook

    bighook New Member

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    Talked to my physiotherapist today about your condition and he suspects it may be a growth imbalance issue.HE says that teenagers growth of bones and tendons are often faster than what the muscle reflex pathways take to develope.Hence that awkward clumsy teenage year stage of life.He suspects that the tendons neuro pathways may not be functioning properly because of growth spurt developement.It may be good to ease off and allow your growth to catch up with you.Sorry no magic pill solution but perhaps a physiotherapist can speed up the transition.
     
  13. BethuneGuy

    BethuneGuy Regular Member

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    Thank you Bighook. Might be my last year of competitive badminton anyways, once University starts parents probably won't support my badminton. I'll just do my best and cope with what I have. I'll get another physio see if he can find any non-surgical solution.
     
  14. Bandana

    Bandana New Member

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    This is a common badminton injury, usually accidental. It may occur when the athlete steps on his partner's foot and land with a plantar flexed, inverted and supinated foot. Most sprains occur on the lateral ligament complex, a group of ligaments on the outside of the ankle. It will result in a painful swelling in the outer aspect of the ankle, usually causing a partial or total rupture of one or more ligaments.

    Apply RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate) to reduce swelling. It may also result in other complications eg. fracture, tendon injuries and loss of proprioceptive control. It may take days to a few months to heal with adequate rehabilitation.

    Meniscus Tear

    Normally caused by a sudden twisting movement of the knee during footwork resulting in the tear of the meniscus. There will be pain in the joint-line of the knee, mild swelling and unable to flex or extend the leg in full. It may be having accompanying collateral or cruciate ligament injury.

    Muscle Strain
    Sudden explosive loading of a muscle resulting in rapid contraction of muscle fibres like a sudden overhead smash. It may result in the disruption of muscle fibers and will cause muscle pain, swelling, bruising and lost of function (depending on severity) eg. Hamstring strain, gastrocnemius strain, adductor strain, quadratus lumborum/ lumbocostal strain.
    ...........
     
    #14 Bandana, Dec 28, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 9, 2011

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