I have been having a spot of trouble with my knee lately. When I kneel down for too long, I can’t get up or walk with weight bearing on the left leg and to stretch it out feels like it is going to snap. It happened big time after Amy was born, and then a few time in the last 2 months or so. 15 years ago I had a knee reconstruction after a fateful game of netball where I tore my Anterior Cruciate Ligament. I’ve never played netball since, or really any sport and so taking up running this year was some exercise long overdue. But this niggly knee has had me a bit worried and I don’t want to give up my beloved running, so I popped along to my knee specialist last week for some preventative action.

He wasn’t sure what the problem was, so sent me for an x-ray. The Xray technician asked me if I had a lot of stairs in my house. I thought to myself “OMG is she telling me I have ‘Staircase Knee’ or something like that?”. Then she went on to say that she had a friend who lived in my street and their house had heaps of stairs, did mine as well???!

So I have the xray results and they have just been sitting there because I really wasn’t expecting anything to show up. Then I thought I’d take a look at them to see if the screws that I had inserted 15 years ago were visible. I was expecting to see some tiny little metallic screws there, but OMG there are HUGE. About an inch long each and over half a CM thick. One at the top and one at the bottom keeping my fake ligament in place. But the worst thing to see was that the bottom screw has its tip inside the knee cavity, not flush with the tibia, so maybe this is why it has been so sore when I kneel. It is poking into me!

I’m back at the specialist’s today and now am very worried that this is somewhat more serious than I first thought and that surgery is in order to sheer off the tip of the protruding screw. Yikes, I’m freaking out. But before I get too worked up I’m just going to see what he has to say and take it from there. I’ll let you know how it goes!!!

Edited to add:
Been to see specialist and I have to have the screw removed. He said not only has the screw moved up into the free space but it has migrated about a centimetre out from its original position. He said he’d never seen that before and could he show the xray to his colleagues! They all agreed that my pain was legitimate. From here, I see the surgeon in 2 weeks and most likely the operation will be the following week. There go my chances of doing the Canberra Times Fun Run – bummer. The doctor did say that I could keep running, but as a compromise I am not allowed to run down hills as that put too much pressure on the screw.

One good thing – this is forcing me to wean Amy. She can’t feed while I have anesthetic in my system and I’ve been wanting to wean her for ages now so this is the opportunity. Yay.