HI, this is my first time posting here and I am not sure of the professional nature of the forum so I apologize if my questions are naïve.
A couple of year ago I injured my knee and my patella subluxed for the first time and I have since recovered fairly well and it has only hinted at coming out again a few times. But recently it severely subluxed once again when I jumped a fence and landed at a bad angle in a ditch on the other side I didn’t see. Nothing sketchy here I was just trying to get to a gas station from the highway when my car ran out of gas and encountered a large fence.
I couldn’t walk on it for a few days but I iced it and it has grown continually stronger over the past few weeks and I have the majority of my range of motion and strength back again.
I have a few questions about this. Firstly I have seem to hit a bit of a wall in terms of range of motion it has not improved considerably in about a week and if I try and force it and work it out by walking more force a greater range than is comfortable it just swells again and seems to regress a tad.
Are there any stretches or exercises I should do to regain proper function or should I be easy on it until it does not hurt and swell? I’m just unsure of what type and how much uncomfort and pain is part of recovery or sign of injury.
Also when I do fully heal again what sort of exercises should I do and focus on to prevent this from happening again in the future. I have read strengthening the inner thigh helps this but my thighs are fairly strong as I do workout regularly but maybe there are better exercises I do not know about that would isolate the muscles that will hold my kneecap in place better that I should be focusing on.
Any helpful advice or websites or literature recommendations to further educate myself about this would be greatly appreciated.
You can find a local Physical Therapist to help you by going to [URL=http://www.apta.org]www.apta.org[/URL] and clicking on the "Find A PT" tool at the top of the page.
I doubt anyone will want to give you detailed medical advice over the internet, but it seems you might benefit from the services of a good Physical Therapist (in person, that is). Good luck. J
Are you certain it is the patella that is subluxing? I had a patient sent to me a while back with this diagnosis. It turns out his ACL was torn and the "subluxing" patella was actually just the instability in his knee; giving out whenever he jumped and landed on it hard. I agree, have a good ortho PT take a look at this.