My Running Injury (MRI)

I've been meaning to bring you up to date on my knee. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I had an appointment with the orthopedic specialist on Thursday, August 5th. It didn't take him long to figure out that my jacked up knee was caused by a stress fracture. He put me on crutches and scheduled me for an MRI on Monday, August 9th and a follow-up appointment with him today.

I got to see the MRI images today. Here is one of them...



You are looking straight at the front of my knee, but beyond the knee cap. The red arrow is pointing to the problem. You see that dark area inside the bone? Well, it's supposed to be the same gray color as the rest of the inside of the bone.

If you could see the other "slices" of the MRI, you could see that it's at least as deep as it is wide or tall. It's just below the growth plate of the tibia and is called a proximal medial tibial stress fracture. And it will heal... over the course of 6-8 weeks.

There is also cartilage damage inside the knee joint, but I already knew that. It's an old injury but now I know a little more about it, thanks to the MRI. The good news is the cartilage damage isn't in a place that is likely to be be aggravated by running. It's in the groove that the knee cap slides over. It mainly hurts when I'm on my knees.

I have another appointment in three weeks. At that time, he will take a regular x-ray and assess my progress. He will then decide whether I can start working on the eliptical or bike riding to strengthen the surrounding muscles and tendons. It will be weeks later before I can do any high impact exercising like running. And even then I will have to ease into it very gradually.

But over the next three weeks, he just wants me to get to the point where I can walk normally without pain. Baby steps.