I wondered if you could shed some light on my knee’s recent shenanigans!
I had my ACL reconstructed 6 years ago and have had occasional bouts of pain since then, however, for the past 3 months I’ve suffered with something which has made me think something slightly more sinister is at work:
pain during squatting around the front of the base of my femur, slightly on the inner side, and across the top of my patella at flexion
achy / painful knees for 24-48 hours post squatting
a build up of pain when I have my knee bent +90 degrees for a period of +10/15 minutes, resulting in extreme pain after 20-25 minutes and the feeling of needing to click/release
a locking sensation after I’ve had my knee bent for a period and try to extend it, it feels like it locks around 45 degrees and then clicks open as I push through to extension with pain again mostly around the top of the kneecap
on occasion pain has continued at full extension and I’ve not felt like my knee has set into place - if I then squeeze my quad tight and try to overextend my knee there’s a very slight click and a sensation of it being ‘back in place’
I’m 28, 81kg, 6’0". Healthy and strength training for a while, however I have to say my programming was particularly squat-heavy when this knee pain began.
Any comments at all would be very gratefully received! I hope to go skiing so thoughts on that (if you have enough information!) also very welcome.
I’d be very grateful for your opinion on this but if I need to give you more info or it’s impossible opine without a physical examination please do let me know!
As an update - I skied on it for a few days - felt ok while skiing except when landing jumps but very painful in the evenings…
Hey! Really sorry for the delayed response. The holidays have us keeping quite busy.
How has training been going recently? You would likely benefit from a consult with us: Contact Us | Barbell Medicine.
What type of ACL graft was utilized? How was the rehab process and return to activity?
This certainly could be a load management issue given your symptoms coincided with what sounds like an increase in squatting. Any recent traumas to the area?
Rehab and return was a faily long process as my surgery was delayed, so a lot of muscle wastage but it was fairly smooth / without complication.
Training has been OK, I tried to manage the squat loading better but it wasn’t worth the pain so have now just replaced with some fairly light and less frequent (say once a week) split squats.
I don’t recall any specific traumas to the area recently which is what has really confused me.
I think when my ACL was repaired they commented on ‘bony growths’ around the area - I wonder if these have returned or I have somehow damaged my meniscus.
Gotcha. Thanks for the updated information. I definitely recommend a consult so we can address your concerns and give individualistic advice.
Regarding the symptoms you are describing and reference to meniscus - I tend to not get too concerned with these “mechanical symptoms”. Here is a write-up on the topic I did earlier this year: Loading....