Please help me I need medical help!! !! !! !! !

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hopefully i can get help on here because this obsession i've been having is driving me NUTS! I fell off my skateboard a week ago and i felt an indentation on my knee and went to the hospital for x-rays. the X-rays revelled nothing wrong with my bones, the doctor guessed that it must've been swelling creating a "crater" on my knee and to keep ice on it and don't walk so much, a week has passed and the 'swelling' hasn't gone away, i googled (i know google isn't a reliable source for information but I'm desperate) "HOLE IN KNEE AFTER FALL" and i got only a few Yahoo questions with similar stories to mine. They suggested a Tendon rupture; NOT a very good explanation because:

1. it would have to be a Quadriceps Tendon which would cause an inability to straiten my leg

2. my knee cap would sag which would be noticeable on an X-ray

3. Tendon Ruptures occur in middle aged people and very rare cases in adolescents

So i decided to have a second opinion at the hospital,i went on my own, but my dad showed up and said it was ridiculous to be waiting in the waiting room and the doctor is never gonna see me, so i left in a huff and he explained that the hole is there because my knee is swelling and the indented area is there because theres nothing there to swell. so i spent the ENTIRE night searching for knee anatomy and discovered that he was wrong, theres lots of Tendons, muscles and such to swell so just to prove him wrong i purposely bashed my knee in waiting for the same results and i didn't. HOW DO I GET OVER THIS DAMN OBSESSION ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY!! !! !! !! !! !!

You're just gonna have to show us a picture of your knees (we need to see the uninjured knee to compare)

I know how you feel, kinda. I fell and smacked my knee very hard on a metal protrusion and I think I chipped the bone (and also struck my forehead very hard). But it happened on the same day that my huband thought he was having a heart attack, so I didn't get it looked at. I could feel sharp bits of bone down under my kneecap for months afterward but we had no money for a copay for the doctor and I couldn't think what they would be able to do about it, so I had to let it go. Eventually the bits of bone were I guess reabsorbed and my knee is fine now.

I guess you sneak into a different hospital to get second opinion, so that you can make sure that it's going to be OK.

How did your father find out that you were at the hospital?

[puttin' on my doctor hat]

First things, first: The xray will definitively rule out any injury to the bones, and it will definitively rule out misalignment and subluxation.

So, based on what you have said that the doctors have told you, you are definitely dealing with a soft-tissue injury, then. This is consistent with the swelling and pain that you have described. There is no "hole" in your knee.

Given that your injury was a result of a fall, I would view a patellar tendon rupture as much more likely than a quadriceps tendon rupture, but, frankly both of these are much less likely than a good, old-fashioned sprain. I suspect that the injury is far more likely to be an ACL sprain, most likely from an anteriolateral strike (I don't know where you came down on your knee--but an anteriomedial strike could have generated a similar injury). Depending on how much mobility you have in the knee, it is possible that there is some injury to the menisci as well.

You mustn't assume that where you observe the swelling on the surface is the primary site of injury or the origin point of swelling. If there is swelling in the interior of the joint, the swelling will have nowhere to go but to "bubble out" around the patella, creating a "ring" of swelling (which will also put pressure on the quadriceps and patellar tendons from the posterior.

I haven't examined you, so I can't diagnose you. But it certainly sounds like a sprain to me.

What you need to be concerned with is how it feels. Does it hurt when you walk on it? Does it hurt all the time? How it feels is whats important. Whatever swelling that's there will eventually go down and straighten out. If it's still hurting then go back to the ER, or if you can, make an appointment with an orthopod. Otherwise, wait and see.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

when i was about 15 or so, i fell off a low balance beam onto a wooden floor at my school. i was doing a final test from the gymnastics unit and i forgot to take my socks off, and i slipped*****. my kneecap smacked directly onto the floor. i limped to the school office in great pain (with no help from my teachers or peers of course. they stood and watched me).

within about 30 minutes i was able to walk on it properly again, though it still hurt. but the odd thing was that i had a dent right in the centre of my kneecap. i showed it to a doctor later that day and he said, "why yes, you have a dent in your kneecap." i was worried i had broken it, but since the pain progressively faded and i was able to walk on it, the doctor was not that concerned.

fast forward 25 years. i still have a dent across my kneecap. it never went away. now i have arthritis in my knees, but i don't think it was caused by the injury as it is worse on the other side! other than that, no lasting issues. oh, i should also add - my kneecaps have been x-rayed and nothing shows up on them. but i can feel it with my fingers.

*****i wish i had been a diagnosed aspie back then, i was so forgetful and uncoordinated and prone to injury. i should have been on a modified program really.

Sometimes I think I have hypochondria. Everything hurts, my soul hurts.