Thank you ever so much again for such a thorough and caring reply. I will print off those blog papers about the muscle atrophy for my physio. What will happen to my quads though as I am quite thin as it is and they are dissappearing. My physio keeps telling I can’t walk because my quads are too weak but today I’ll show him that paper. Also, how do I know when the inflammation has gone down? Are heel slides acceptable? The pain specialist told me to use a tens machine with the exercises but I’m not sure this is right either. I feel like I need to move my knee even though I can’t that far (80 degrees). It presently feels like my knee joint is a rock though the London consultant says in his opinion that I have a mild form of arthrofibrosis but at the moment it has stripped me of my life and I cry most of the time. Did you have a similar feeling with your knee, like it was cement setting? Did it settle? Sorry, my mind is a boggle and I’m trying to gather as much information as possible. Sent from my iPhone
top of page
bottom of page
Hi,
My quads never recovered because there was nobody to inform me about the risks of exercising an upset knee, so I kept going up and down steps in an effort to build muscle. It pinched and hurt, but I thought that would be OK, and it wasn't, it just got worse. So, many years down the track, I still have an atrophied quad, but it doesn't affect my ability to walk - the pain does though.
You kind of need to become an expert on how your knee is feeling, if it's hurting more or it's more swollen or warm after you do something. For some knees heal slides are OK, for others they aren't. It is indeed important to keep the leg moving through the range of motion, but CPM is safer and you can get many more bends in per day.
Nobody can tell you that your AF is mild - in my opinion, that's simply not possible, there are no scans that can show how severe it is (I'm working on this) unless the tissues are badly distorted. It's clearly having a severe impact on your life, and your ROM is severely impacted.
For myself, I still need to do CPM twice a day to keep my knee functional enough, without doing that I lose ROM and can't even step over small things. I very much hope that you can avoid this. I suggest that you contact Sebastiano Nutarelli, he's had AF himself and has set up a physiotherapy business to treat people with AF. He's based in Switzerland but he does consult via telehealth. You can email tatiana.busti@sportsrehab.ch
Take care, Kayley