dislocated!

[sportsguy86]

I'm 18 years old, and I have had a lot of trouble with my knee since I was about 8. When I was 6, I took up springboard diving. The coach I had pushed me way too hard, and at the age of 7, I dislocated my knee, whilst compressing the diving board down. After an operation that involved probing my patella to replace it, I thought it would return back to normal... I was wrong, when I was walking through college, I dislocated it again! This time from just WALKING! Again, they probed the patella and told me not to put full pressure on it for at least 3 months, I am already able to put a reasonable amount of pressure on my leg, and this happened only 3 weeks ago. What I'm really asking is, How long does it actually take to fully recover from a dislocated knee?

[sydunisportsmed]

It sounds like your problem is pretty clear - recurrent patella dislocations (and/or subluxations or partial dislocations).

It is not as clear what the surgeons did on the first occasion, only that it didn't correct the problem.

Muscle strengthening and taping or bracing can definitely assist keeping the patella stable.

Surgery is needed for the more resistant cases, and there are various levels of surgery. The big operation (which you may need if you haven't had it already) is a realignment of the patella, where its bony attachment to the shin is sawn off and moved 7mm to the inside, and then screwed back down. This takes 6 months to recover from but has a very high rate of preventing patellar dislocations.

Other forms of surgery have quicker recovery but slightly lower success rates at fixing the problem.