Leg Injury

[gass]

I was playing soccer with my son's team (11/19) and the coach and I got tangled up while we were running along. He came down on my thigh which gave me one of the worst charlie horses in recent memory. After I writhed on the ground for a while I was able to resume playing albeit in a somewhat hobbled manner. Later that evening, my leg swelled up, and was very tender to walk on. It actually got better by the end of the night but my knee had swelled up considerably. Now, after 5 days, my knee is still swollen and generally it's tender to walk on. The first night I did go to the emergency room but their overall advice was to ice it and stay off it. My wife already shredded the Percoset prescription :cry: so I swallow a couple Ibuprofen once in a while. It has shut me down on working out except for powering through a CB workout yesterday. I was curious why the knee would swell when it was the thigh that got kneed. Also, is continued icing still acceptable? Heat pad? Just rest it? Any suggestions appreciated.

[rbibbs]

Gass, I bet we both wish we could go back, and see what would have happened if you had not kept hobbling, sat down, and iced it immediately. Do that next time something like this happens.

You've been to the ER, but they are not really scaled to deal with musculoskeletal rehab. Have you been to another doctor since?

This is just a preliminary estimate of what might have happened, more experienced trainers will likely be along to give you more perspective, so check back....

A bruise turns purple because there's enough vascular damage (or an immune system response to injury) for fluids to leak out where they don't really belong. On the surface, you can see them. A deep muscle bruise might not visibly turn colors, but there's still fluid seepage, accounts for some of the swelling, and may have found its way to your knee.

Since you were in motion and your leg encountered enough sideways force that you couldn't compensate and fell, it's possible some of the internals of the knee joint are bruised too.

Try this (carefully). With the support of family members or furniture, stand on your bad leg, hold your good leg thigh parallel to the ground in front of you at a 10-15 degree angle to your front/back axis, and gently swing your leg so that your ankle "draws" a circle, first in one direction then the other. That gives you a baseline for the motion. Now stand on your GOOD leg and do that with the bad one. Do this gingerly, and if it produces stabbing pain, stop immediately and get an orthopedist to look at it.

If it does NOT produce stabbing pain, keep doing it, within the range it's relatively comfortable, and make 10 circles in each direction every time during the day that your attention is drawn to the injury.

The dividing line here is that if it kills you to move it, then stop, load it as little as possible, and see a doctor immediately. If it still moves but only hurts when you try to exert with it, then just move it without exertion and it will gradually take care of itself.

I got both quads charleyhorsed once, and it was VERY hard to negotiate steps or load my legs with my knees flexed at all, for a full week. No swelling happened, but people react differently, I don't bruise readily, that figures in to the degree of reaction you get.

Yes, ice and ibuprofen are appropriate (and heat less so) as long as swelling is present. Don't exert it until it's moving well.

Rick

[gass]

Thanks for the feedback Rick. I will try the exercise. The knee continues to be swollen yet there is no discoloration in the bruise area. The thigh area was swollen but has since gone back to normal. As the swelling in the thigh area went down the bruise itself became more painful.

Tom

[rbibbs]

There's at least another category of bruise beside muscle/tissue, I think it's vascular, produces a "knot" and a sensation of burning pain when it's touched. Those take a lot longer to recover. I don't think it poses a great risk to your health, although circulatory problems in legs can't be altogether taken lightly. You might still want to run that by a doctor, ask your general prac who would be best qualified to evaluate it. The prescription is likely to be "patience", but I don't know the range of applicable treatment for that sort of thing.

Rick