Knee Injury

I banged up my knee pretty good the other day.. actually a while ago. I first injured it on Jan. 9 playing basketball, and then reaggrevated it again on Jan. 22. I had thought I was healed up enough and played a bit more basketball and this time, it really hurt :(. Anyways, I ended up seeing the doctors (I don't think Sandy would have allowed me not to see one, plus it was quite painful), and it turns out I have a partial tear on my MCL. Fortunately, surgery will not be required and it'll just take maybe 6~8 weeks to be fully healed.

Didn't tell the parents right away as I didn't want want them to get too worried about it. With Sandy's parents arriving in town in a few days, I can't hide it any more so I guess it's time to blog about it :) It's healing ok, and I can walk without crutches now although still not quite normally (heavily favoring one leg), but that's pretty good since it's only been 10 days and it's suppose to take 2 months to heal.


In addition to seeing the doctor, I did some research on my own through various websites. The websites describe 3 degrees of tear, from partial to complete tear. My injury is diagnosed as a second degree tear so actually it may be even faster than the 2 months the doctor mentioned. The website seem to suggest 1 month should be enough and I suspect that's probably the case.


Here are a couple links:
Ask a doctor
MCL Injuries


One thing I wonder about this type of injury is that how a 3rd degree (complete tear) of the MCL can heal without surgury. Wouldn't surgery be required to reattach the ligament? From what I know, they don't just grow back if it has snapped. Or is that tendon while ligaments do grow back? Anyways, I guess I can learn more about it next week from my Father-in-Law about this when he visits next week :) Hopefully I'll be able to walk almost normally by then.


Oh yeah, One last thing that I learned from this injury is that some drugs can indeed be quite powerful.. I'm taking 2x Naproxen at 500mg strength and it's rather upsetting to the stomach.. (compared to OTC drug, Aleve is the equivalent at 200mg 2x a day). I've learned that I need to constantly eat every couple hours or else I feel like I'm getting stomach ulcer :( I first found this out waking up at 2 AM in at night with the stomach just feeling foul until I ate a piece of plain bread.. As a result of the eatting and being somewhat immobilized, I'm gaining some bad weight :( In fact, Sandy commented that I look more pregnant than she does :P I guess I'll have to under go some aggresive rehab later to not only get my knee/legs back in shape but also to lose the excess weight that I'm beginning to gain.