That Darn Knee

The good news is, my ACL graft that was done 7/1998 has held strong. I was worried about that. I asked him how long he thinks that rebuilt ACL will last, and he said “it should last you into your grave as long as you don’t injure yourself again.”

The bad news is this: I have significant arthritis and cartilage degeneration on the outside (lateral side) of my left knee. This is due to the motorcycle accident and injury I sustained way back in 1997 (the reason I had reconstructive surgery back then). It will progress throughout my life, because that’s the way arthritis and cartilage degeneration works. So I have a “bone on bone” issue… and when I work my knee hard, it irritates the joint and causes swelling, lack of range of motion, and pain.

My surgeon loves CrossFit and in fact he does it as well. However, he explained to me that “The workouts they post on the website are designed with people with healthy joints in mind. You have a bad knee, so you have to scale back and use substitution or you are going to accelerate your knee problems.” He wants me not to run at all anymore (Anything with pounding/impact causes bone to hit bone = bad) and instead substitute rowing… he recommends biking (I love to mtn bike, so this is good), and he recommends to use less weight when weight lifting, and more reps. He stated the obvious, but I hadn’t thought about it much “your knee is not designed to carry an extra several hundred pounds”… but at the same time, this guy is the team doctor for the Colorado Avalanche and they all lift weights to get strong, so again he emphasized that weight lifting is good, and it’s good to keep doing it to keep the joint strong, but to scale back, be careful and keep a log of what causes pain and swelling and not to do those things. The femur and tibia bones are also beginning to “fissure” (crack) in that area. It is possible that long term, I may need a total knee replacement because there is no such procedure to replace cartilage, and if they bone fissures continue I’ll have some big time bone problems anyway.

So there you have it. Back off on the workouts, don’t run, keep a log of when I have pain and what caused it, and maybe someday get a whole new knee. And I am on prescription anti-inflammatories for two months, after which time I talk with Dr. Parker again. He asked me what sports I like to do and I explained that CrossFit is sort of like a sport for me, which he understood, but he said "you won't want to continue to try to compete with people with healthy knees or you will regret it." Oh well. I just want to be fit.

Oh, the exact technical wording on my MRI report is:

1. Full thickness cartilage loss along the posterior weight bearing surface of the lateral tibial plateau with mild subchondrial bone edema.
2. Areas of full thickness chondrial fissuring along the patella.
3. Moderate to large joint effusion with synovitis