The ACL is one of the most recognized injuries among athletes and sports fans alike. Injury among high-profile professional athletes has increased awareness of a torn ACL. The ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, is one of the two main stabilizing ligaments in the center of the knee. Working with the posterior cruciate ligament, or PCL, [...]
+Continue ReadingACL reconstruction: which graft is right for you? One of the questions I frequently get when I see athletes in the office who recently suffered a knee injury and I determined that they’ve torn their anterior cruciate ligament is what type of graft to use in surgery. As I discussed in a prior post, ACL [...]
+Continue ReadingACL reconstruction: Is surgery the appropriate treatment in young kids? Recently I’ve performed ACL surgeries on 11- and 12-year-old kids. Whether or not to perform an ACL surgery on an athlete who is still growing has been the subject of debate for a long time, and I think it might be helpful to discuss the [...]
+Continue ReadingACL reconstruction: what to expect from surgery and rehabilitation ACL surgeries are very common in the US, with approximately 100,000 surgeries performed every year. Currently I perform about 125 of these surgeries a year, and I’ve seen in my practice, like most sports medicine surgeons, that overall the outcomes are outstanding. It certainly helps that [...]
+Continue ReadingInjury to the articular cartilage of a joint can be a very difficult problem. The articular cartilage is the cartilage lining on the end of a bone. As one of my colleagues used to tell patients, articular cartilage is “the white stuff on the end of a chicken bone.” It provides some degree of shock [...]
+Continue ReadingThe iliotibial band (IT band) is a band of tissue that runs from the pelvis to the top of the tibia along the outside of the thigh. It is a frequent source of pain in runners, but it can affect athletes in other sports as well. The pain arises from friction between the Iliotibial band [...]
+Continue ReadingThe medial collateral ligament, or MCL, is a thick, strong ligament on the inside of the knee. It is commonly injured in athletes who play contact and collision sports, such as football and soccer. The typical mechanism of injury involves a valgus stress. An example of this type of stress is when the athlete’s foot [...]
+Continue ReadingOne of the most common injuries in sports medicine, and all of orthopaedics, is a meniscus tear. The meniscus is a C-shaped structure that serves as a shock absorber for the knee. There are two menisci in each knee – one on the inside and one on the outside – between the femur (thigh bone) [...]
+Continue ReadingIn my last few clinics, I’ve seen several patients as second opinions for what each patient felt like was a failed meniscus surgery. Each of them was somewhere between four weeks and three months out from his or her surgery with another surgeon, and each felt as if he or she should be doing better [...]
+Continue ReadingOsgood-Schlatter disease is a fairly benign condition that involves young athletes. It is an apophysitis (an inflammation of the growth center) at the top of the tibia where the patella tendon inserts. It is almost exclusively seen in athletes around the time of their growth spurt, although occasionally an adult complains of pain at a [...]
+Continue ReadingOsteochondritis dissecans is a problem that affects mainly young athletes, but occasionally the residual effects of an osteochondritis dissecans lesion can be seen in an adult. The lesion involves the bone under the articular cartilage in part of the knee (almost always the lateral aspect of the medial femoral condyle) starting to die. Early on [...]
+Continue ReadingPatella dislocations are common knee injuries in sports. Frequently I will hear an athlete complain that his or her “knee” popped out of place, but usually they are referring to their patella (kneecap). A true knee dislocation is much less common and involves tearing multiple ligaments of the knee, often including the anterior cruciate ligament [...]
+Continue ReadingA patella tendon rupture is a painful and serious injury in sports. It is the tendon that extends from the bottom of the patella to the top of the tibia, and along with the quadriceps muscle, the quadriceps tendon, and the patella (kneecap), it serves to extend the knee. A traumatic injury is almost always [...]
+Continue ReadingPatellar tendinitis is a common source of pain in athletes of jumping sports, such as basketball and volleyball. It is an inflammation of the patella tendon, which is the tendon that extends from the bottom of the patella (kneecap) to the top of the tibia. It can be very painful to athletes who need explosive [...]
+Continue ReadingPatellofemoral pain is a generic term for a variety of conditions that cause pain along the front of the knee. In the past, doctors referred to these symptoms as chondromalacia. Specifically chondromalacia refers to softening or injury to the cartilage underneath the kneecap. Patellofemoral pain refers to pain coming from the kneecap or front of [...]
+Continue ReadingThe plica are connective tissue in the knee that exist in all fetuses but normally recede to small bands of tissue in adults. In most athletes, they are not involved in any significant function, but they can become inflamed and serve as a source of pain. Typically athletic individuals with plica syndrome complain of pain [...]
+Continue ReadingThe posterior cruciate ligament is one of the two cruciate ligaments of the knee. It resides just behind the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the center of the knee. It is partially responsible for stability of the knee, and it is directly responsible for preventing the tibia (shin bone) from being displaced behind the femur [...]
+Continue ReadingThe patella, or kneecap, has a small fluid-filled sac just outside of it to serve as sort of a shock absorber when kneeling or to prevent friction during knee range of motion. It is normally very thin. When it is inflamed, it bursa can become large and swollen. Typically swelling is the most common complaint, [...]
+Continue ReadingA quadriceps tendon rupture is a devastating injury to the knee that uncommonly occurs in sports. The quadriceps tendon is the tendon that extends from the quadriceps muscle of the thigh to the top of the patella (kneecap). Overall, it is part of the lower extremity’s extensor mechanism. The quadriceps muscle becomes the quadriceps tendon [...]
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C. David Geier Jr., M.D.
