I want to share a story about my adorable 13-year-old nephew. He is the typical 8th-grade boy who loves to ski, plays travel soccer, and runs track and cross country at his middle school. Just before Christmas, he had a knee injury at a soccer game but was able to keep playing. His mom, my sister, said it didn’t seem like he had really injured himself — it seemed like a pretty normal tackle. She thought he had hurt it, but not really badly.
But on the 5-hour drive from Danville, PA, where they live, to my house in Quogue, NY, he complained to his parents that his knee was sore. My sister wasn’t particularly worried because he was walking just fine. The holiday was crazy with 16 people at my house, and somehow, I never got a chance to look at his knee. Yet his pain persisted. He could walk and even run, but then the knee injury felt worse.
On my recommendation, he got an MRI the next week. It showed that he had torn his meniscus and sprained his ACL. I do see this happen quite often where a patient will come in with a remote history of a knee injury and then present to my office with recurrent instability.
I would suggest that any injury resulting in swelling or limping be taken seriously, especially in teenagers. In my nephew’s case, the MRI result demonstrated that his knee injury was indeed serious. He started physical therapy and has not yet gotten back to soccer. His local doctor has now allowed him to return to running — and he’s planning to participate in spring soccer with his school.
In some cases, patients are not so fortunate, and they return to cutting sports and cause further injury to their knees.
