| | chronic pain long after dislocation
I dislocated my knee JOINT (not the patella) by twisting it the wrong way in 2001. I had been having problems with chronic dislocation for years following a biking accident, which was the initial time it had dislocated. I was just always able to get it back into the joint. It'd dislocate often when I was swimming. That last dislocation, I just couldn't get the joint back together and at the ER they didn't even believe me that it was dislocated because it didn't appear that way, and the doctor popped it back into the joint when he did the ranges of motion with my leg. An MRI found absolutely nothing wrong and I spent 3 months in physical therapy where they found out my knee had 1/2 the strength it should have.
The entire way through that experience, every doctor and therapist I met with had the look of shock, disbelief, and utter confusion, which made me extremely frustrated. No one knew why my knee was so weak, why the joint itself dislocated, why the dislocation didn't appear to cause any damage whatsoever, why the MRI looked so healthy. I have not since had a dislocation even when someone accidentally kicked me directly on the side of the joint. However, I HAVE had problems with periodic bouts of swelling, weakness to the point where I have almost bought a cane for myself just in case, it does tend to be prone to slight twisting depending on what I'm doing with my leg, and throbbing pains all throughout my knee. I have had doctors pretty much throw their arms up in the air over it. I feel like either THEY think it's not a problem, or that they really have no idea what's going on because otherwise I'm a healthy 25 year old.
Ideas of what it could be now or how to manage at least the pain and weakness? It doesn't seem like exercise is strengthening it this time around or lessening any pain (sometimes certain exercises aggravate it, such as spinning or long-term running). And doctors, what about those? I'm quite discouraged with them at this point.