Hey there BBM family, got a bit of a story.
Six weeks ago had a funny feeling squat and the next day my knee swelled up to the size of a lemon. Thought it was acute bursitis and figured I could augment training not to aggravate it and try to change the load and/or range of motion, however, nothing appear to be working.
It seemed that it was getting progressively worse and after about 2 1/2 weeks it was the size of a grapefruit and I couldn’t walk without assistance. I went to a sports medicine physician, and we discussed possibilities in which the idea of internal knee derangement was a possibility based upon the size of the joint effusion. I opted to get the joint aspirated, 120 cc of turbo fluid came out. This was not sent for testing as it was assumed that I had internally injured my knee, and was not resting enough. We discussed getting an MRI in which I did. did not reveal anything
Fast forward 10 days from there, and my knee joint blew up again and went to see an orthopedist in which I was aspirated again, however, 95 cc of bloody fluid came out. This physician decided to send this fluid for culture in which she specified lyme
Seven days later PCR came back and it was positive for Lyme, as well as a white count of 22K in my knee joint
Saw her partner the next day in which we talked about management for Lyme. I had a knee joint aspirated again and which 75 cc of turbid fluid came out. He also injected another dose of corticosteroid. I also started doxycycline 100 mg b.i.d. that day.
During this time, we have not been able to do any of the power lifts and I’ve just been doing 3/4 body using machines which has been working out well. Currently, I am three days into treatment for Lyme and I don’t have a restricting joint effusion. I’m able to walk without assistance. I desperately do want to get back to training the limb as I’ve noticed pretty severe atrophy.
I plan to attempt to regain passive and active range of motion first before attempting to load the joint, and i’m thinking it’s going to be a rather slow process getting back to Ground Zero, probably 2-3 weeks before i think i may be able to do simple bodyweight stuff. Since my knee is rather sensitive and there’s a chance that I can cause another effusion with too much loading, what’s the general framework I should go about loading? Should I be conservative about range of motion and load or should I attempt to have a complete range of motion, but heavily modulate the load with symptom based progression?