Help Translate My Knee MRI

[lyoung32]

I am a 32 yr. old male in good shape.  Injured my knee a week ago playing racquetball during a squatting motion.

I just got my mri results, but I don't know what they mean, and my doc's appt isn't for a week.  I am out of work and trying to figure out my options.

It says no tear seen, but is it possible or likely there could be a false negative?  I have trouble straightening the leg and I have (weight bearing) pain during certain motions.

Thanks

Findings:

moderate to large knee effusion with popliteal cyst not seen

Grade II signal is present within the anterior and posterior horn of the medial meniscus, no tear seen including the lateral meniscus.

cruciate ligaments, patellar tendon, quadriceps tendon demonstrate no evidence of a tear with the patella, patellar cartilage, and patellar retinacula normal.

No collareral ligament tears seen.  There is a small area of bone marrow edema seen within the articulating portion of the anteromedial femoral condyle with a focal area of chondromalacia of the adjacent articular cartilage.  Signal from the muscular structure is normal.

[lyoung32]

I now have pain behind my knee, it comes and goes.  At times it is pretty bad.  It seems to be right behind (meaning skin, then hamstring, then this thing) the right "hamstring"  Sometimes it feels like a charley horse or a cramp like pain, othertimes it is sharp.  I have clicks in my knee when I extend it.  There also seems to be a pocket of swelling in the soft tissue behind the joint on the back of my leg between the hamstrings.  Is this all normal

[CelestC]

Why can't they just come out and say - swelling, bruising but with no signs of tear which would require surgery?  Wouldn't that just be easer.


It's been a few years since I had to read one - but here it goes:

Have you seen a picture of your femur - it is the bone that is inside the thigh and one of the strongest. The femur "articulates" or bends/rotates/etc with the hip and the knee.  The hip has a ball and socket like joint, while your knee is moved more by just tendons and muscles.

From what it looks like, the articulating - joint- portion of the lower femur has been brusied pretty good.  Anteromedial should mean front center part of femur - at the joint with the knee. The condyle is a land mark feature of many bones and can be were muscles etc attach themselves.

So basically there's a good amount of swelling, that will take time to heal, along with some brusing to the bone.  There are no tears in surrounding tissues and no signs of actual internal bleeding. Everything else seems in good working order.

Looking at the brusing on the bone, it is no wonder why you have pain and cannot extend your knee.  It has to do with were the tendons attach and what is damaged.

Normally, scans on the knee can be very accurate on tears etc.  If there is a lot of internal swelling, then it may be harder to see if there is tears.  Looking at the detail they were able to see - I would say they are accurate in there not being tears.  

Also be careful of doing too much to soon.  I can tell you that my ex-fiancee was injured in the line of duty.  His left knee was a mess.  They did some scans, declared it to be nothing more then swelling and sent him to PT.  He ended up in surgery with an 18month recovery time because his knee had been pulled apart like ground beef from the PT. So keep it slow.

The one comfort is that if something had been really wrong - then your doctor would have likely called you. If you are still concerned, if the pain is not getting better then call your doctor's office.  If you have tingling/numbness in the lower leg etc, or if you develop fever like problems and/or pain becomes out of this world, then go immediately to the hospital.

Hopefully my clumsy reading helped some.