Doctor Says Knee Is A Mess
Just got back from an appointment with my orthopedic doctor and he gave little hope to the possible future of my right knee. I was born without an anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee which has resulted in multiple knee dislocations and cartilage tears. All of the torn cartilage which was about all of it, had to be removed. I began my bodybuilding career at age 16. I won my first competition and not long after that is when I suffered my first massive dislocation in which the doctors discovered that I was ACL deficient when they went into remove most of the cartilage out of my knee. The prognosis wasn’t good as far as what this condition would do to my bodybuilding career. Most people who have tore their ACL or are ACL deficient have the ACL reconstructive surgery. I on the other hand was born with deformed bones in my knee, the doctor said, and the way the bones were formed would make it impossible to do the ACL reconstruction. Despite the gloomy prognosis I went ahead and trained as hard as I could dealing with the knee pain and competed in multiple bodybuilding shows over the years and even won a couple of contests. Though the pain was there, it wasn’t cripling. I had limitations but the pain never bothered my day to day activities. I’m now 33 years old. In October of 07′ I suffered another knee dislocation that resulted in surgery to remove 3 large tumors that had grown in my knee and acually pushed my knee cap out of it’s track. Since then the pain has been holding me back. As a result of not having an ACL in my knee and all the stress I put on it throughout the years has caused severe arthritis in my knee. There’s so much arthritis under my knee cap that when I extend my leg it sounds like corn flakes being crushed up with a rolling pin. It’s nasty! I’ve been able to get back to doing some leg work but I can’t go all out as there is a constant feeling of instability in my knee. My doctor said he was gonna get me doing a series of these shots called synvisc in my knee. It’s a series of three shots you get in three consecutive weeks in a row. It’s supposed to act as a lubricant and inti-inflammatory within the joint hopefully bringing some relief. Currently there is pain whenever I walk and I can’t do my favorite cardio machines, the only cardio that don’t kill it too bad is the excercise bike. I don’t know what the future holds for my long term bodybuilding career but what I do know is that I’m not gonna stop. Not even if my bones crush and crumble I will still find a way to keep doing it. If I have to make modifications in my training I will, if I have to eliminate certain exercise but do new one’s I will but I"m not gonna stop and I plan on setting foot on stage in the very near future. Maybe I won’t have Tom Platz legs but people will know exactly what I’m about. One scarey thought though, what will it feel like in another 20 years? Yikes!
April 11, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Am very sorry to hear about the dreadful state of your knee. I assume you are taking glucosamine/chondroitin (howeve itis spelled) to try to ease the arthritis?
The joint malformations are not as uncommon as we think. There is a pitcher for one of the teams in Florida, I think (forget his name) who was born without a Tommy Johns ligament in his right elbow. (His throwing arm.) It made all kinds of difference in his pitching (more threatening in fact when he learned to use it, because his arm did not behave like other guys, throwing off the batters) but it held him back in the minors for 6 or more years until the major league pitching coaches were finally convinced his arm was not about to drop off. I may have the story confused; he may have come up to Spring Training for a Florida team and then dumped to the minors when they x-rayed his elbow.
All of which is a long winded way to distract you from the pain in your knee. Hope you fele better.