MCL, Meniscus tear, subluxing patella

by Teresa
(Honolulu, Hawaii, USA)

Please help me, I am in tears over this on going issue.

I live in Hawaii - and the doctors keep telling me that they can't help me.

They tell me that I can't ever dance, weight lift, jog or do yoga ever again. I am only 25 years old as of July.

When I was 21 or 22 I played softball for a city team for fun and injured myself - I was running back from 3rd to 2nd base and planted my foot hard -half on and half off the base - i twisted my knee and fell to the ground in extreme pain - one of the doctors I went to suggested that I may have torn my MCL in this injury.

I recovered from this within weeks - at the time thought little of it because my doctor only had me do an xray.

About a year and a half later I was doing aerobic dancing in my living room and my knee "popped" and twisted and i fell to the ground in agonizing pain. The swelling subsided after a few weeks on crutches and while the recovery took longer I did recover.

This time on March 25, 2008 I was dancing and another "pop" and twist and intense pain. the swelling happened immediately and I couldn't walk on it for well over a month. This time I got an MRI and a xray.
This revealed a small tear in the lateral meniscus and only one of the other opinions I got told me that I had a torn MCL - but no one else said that- not even the MRI report - she said that "Most of those guys dont know how to read those things" - which bothered me. They also said that my patella is "subluxing".

When I tell these doctors how upsetting this is - and how important especially dance and weight lifting is to me they say that it really isn't that important and that i need to focus on doing the things I can- which is basically small physical therapy stretches and "swimming straight-legged".

I am so frustrated because I've been weight lifting again for the last four weeks and my body was starting to feel like my body again and during my knee press and lunges I can feel "crackling" in my knee - which i thought was scar tissue being broken up - but my doctor says it is a sign that these exercises are ensuring a life of arthritic pain.