I've Never Been a Neat Writer!
Today I visited the Orthopaedic consultant.
Bear with me, I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open but needed to write this out while I remembered it all.
First things first, he was able to look at the report on my brain scan (that I've been waiting to hear about since the beginning of April), and the good news is that I do, in fact, have a brain in there. \o/ There was nothing there to suggest a cause for the knee giving out & if anything there were fewer hotspots since the last one. This is good in that it means the MS seems to have stabilised somewhat.
Secondly, the letter he'd had from the last neuro (who was a registrar and not my usual ms one) said that he thought there was no neurological cause and that it had a more psychological cause. It should be noted that the Ortho doc (who is awesome sauce, you guys) didn't tell me that, but rather left my folder sitting on the side with the letter on top while he went back to check the mri(s) and I read it...albeit upside down. I was fuming... FU-ming! (I did, however, sit on it until afterwards in order to focus on the consult).
Thirdly, the neck mri I had (because of the deterioration between the C5/6 vertebrae where there was slight narrowing since the previous one a few years ago) showed there was early signs of stenosis (I need to look this up) and narrowing of the spinal cord canal, but nothing worrying, nothing that needs surgical intervention "at this point" and has not worsened since the thyroid mri I had two years ago (I hadn't realised they would look back at that on account that they were looking at different areas, but I was wrong and pleased they did). So, it may possibly worsen, but it's likely to be pretty slow at doing so, or it might remain the same. It's not bad enough to be causing the knee to give out. There is also no sign of ms-y style hotspots in the c-spinal cord \o/. While arthritis is not known to be hereditary there are contributing factors that are (such as joint hypermobility - which I have in spades and is genetic in our family), so there's a possibility that physical trauma combined with genetic risk factors are why I'm dealing with something like this so young. The treatment for this is all in getting my posture better & also continuing with the topical anti-inflammatory gel.
So I then said, "so basically we're no nearer figuring out what's making my knee collapse on me"
To which he frowned, scratched his chin a little, asked a couple more questions and then told me to hop up on the bed. Which leads to...
Fourthly, he re-examined the knee, which as mentioned above is hypermobile (it also has a certain amount of hypereflexia from the ms). He unerringly pressed on a spot just at the top left of my knee cap and I suddenly experienced a stabbity pain of mahoosive proportions (and I can bare pain pretty stoicly). "Mmhmm," he said, "there's your problem..." He did it a couple more times, then did the same on the other knee which had a little clicking but no stabbity pain. And followed up with some jargon that Mikey nodded at and I looked slightly blank at. So he translated lol.
It comes down to this... I finally haz an answer for why my knee keeps collapsing. Basically, the quad muscles are so ridiculously weak they're not holding the kneecap properly in place, this means that sometimes when I put my weight on my leg the message gets zipped back "oh noes, we can't hold on to this..." and severs the connection to the muscles, making the knee collapse (I suppose rather than cause a dislocated knee cap).
You might be wondering what the treatment for this problem might be? Well, this brings me back to the subject of this post, because the treatment is to literally write my alphabet in the air...with my foot! I can hear you simultaneously wondering "WTF?" & laughing your arses off. Stoppit! lol. How this works is that I have to hold my leg straight and trace out big letters with my foot, without resting it down again in between. BIG! ones, not ickle ones (which I'm just about capable of right now). I made it a little way into C before I could do no more...muscles shaking in my thigh and my hip killing me. He had me do it again. To the resulting attempt he declared that the top of my B wasn't horizontal enough... I told him "I was never a neat writer..." and then I cracked up laughing. Did you know it's impossible to do foot ABCs while laughing if you have weak quads? Well now you do! lol. So, every day, 3-4 times a day, I have to work through A-C and then when I can get through C I move on to D, he said it could take 3-4months to get all the way to Z.
All I could think was, it's a good job I'm (or should that be my foot is) not dyslexic!
Nate
Bear with me, I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open but needed to write this out while I remembered it all.
First things first, he was able to look at the report on my brain scan (that I've been waiting to hear about since the beginning of April), and the good news is that I do, in fact, have a brain in there. \o/ There was nothing there to suggest a cause for the knee giving out & if anything there were fewer hotspots since the last one. This is good in that it means the MS seems to have stabilised somewhat.
Secondly, the letter he'd had from the last neuro (who was a registrar and not my usual ms one) said that he thought there was no neurological cause and that it had a more psychological cause. It should be noted that the Ortho doc (who is awesome sauce, you guys) didn't tell me that, but rather left my folder sitting on the side with the letter on top while he went back to check the mri(s) and I read it...albeit upside down. I was fuming... FU-ming! (I did, however, sit on it until afterwards in order to focus on the consult).
Thirdly, the neck mri I had (because of the deterioration between the C5/6 vertebrae where there was slight narrowing since the previous one a few years ago) showed there was early signs of stenosis (I need to look this up) and narrowing of the spinal cord canal, but nothing worrying, nothing that needs surgical intervention "at this point" and has not worsened since the thyroid mri I had two years ago (I hadn't realised they would look back at that on account that they were looking at different areas, but I was wrong and pleased they did). So, it may possibly worsen, but it's likely to be pretty slow at doing so, or it might remain the same. It's not bad enough to be causing the knee to give out. There is also no sign of ms-y style hotspots in the c-spinal cord \o/. While arthritis is not known to be hereditary there are contributing factors that are (such as joint hypermobility - which I have in spades and is genetic in our family), so there's a possibility that physical trauma combined with genetic risk factors are why I'm dealing with something like this so young. The treatment for this is all in getting my posture better & also continuing with the topical anti-inflammatory gel.
So I then said, "so basically we're no nearer figuring out what's making my knee collapse on me"
To which he frowned, scratched his chin a little, asked a couple more questions and then told me to hop up on the bed. Which leads to...
Fourthly, he re-examined the knee, which as mentioned above is hypermobile (it also has a certain amount of hypereflexia from the ms). He unerringly pressed on a spot just at the top left of my knee cap and I suddenly experienced a stabbity pain of mahoosive proportions (and I can bare pain pretty stoicly). "Mmhmm," he said, "there's your problem..." He did it a couple more times, then did the same on the other knee which had a little clicking but no stabbity pain. And followed up with some jargon that Mikey nodded at and I looked slightly blank at. So he translated lol.
It comes down to this... I finally haz an answer for why my knee keeps collapsing. Basically, the quad muscles are so ridiculously weak they're not holding the kneecap properly in place, this means that sometimes when I put my weight on my leg the message gets zipped back "oh noes, we can't hold on to this..." and severs the connection to the muscles, making the knee collapse (I suppose rather than cause a dislocated knee cap).
You might be wondering what the treatment for this problem might be? Well, this brings me back to the subject of this post, because the treatment is to literally write my alphabet in the air...with my foot! I can hear you simultaneously wondering "WTF?" & laughing your arses off. Stoppit! lol. How this works is that I have to hold my leg straight and trace out big letters with my foot, without resting it down again in between. BIG! ones, not ickle ones (which I'm just about capable of right now). I made it a little way into C before I could do no more...muscles shaking in my thigh and my hip killing me. He had me do it again. To the resulting attempt he declared that the top of my B wasn't horizontal enough... I told him "I was never a neat writer..." and then I cracked up laughing. Did you know it's impossible to do foot ABCs while laughing if you have weak quads? Well now you do! lol. So, every day, 3-4 times a day, I have to work through A-C and then when I can get through C I move on to D, he said it could take 3-4months to get all the way to Z.
All I could think was, it's a good job I'm (or should that be my foot is) not dyslexic!
Nate