Question

Knee   I was in a car accident three weeks and three days ago my knee hit the dash board. I have new symptoms showing up that I did not have before in the last two days. The right side of my left knee has a knot on it and something defintley feels out of place and it does not look righ also have bruising showing up.  Symptoms I have got are my knee gives out, my knee is tender to the touch, can't straighten it and my foot goes numb but when it does I get a more severe pain in my knee. My X Ray was normal though so what could be going on or what should I proceed to do next?

Answer
Hello Misty,

I am so sorry about your injury.  So many people have knee injuries in car accidents. I have one in my office right now that has been very frustrating. Let me give you an idea about what we did, and how we finally go to the bottom of it...

The knee was painful, but relatively intact when examined. I didn't see any signs of ligament or cartilage damage. We continued to treat his knee and spine for sprain/strain injury. The x-rays were negative, which is not a surprise, since the ONLY thing that an x-ray of the knee is good for is to help to see if there is a broken bone. (most knee injuries are NOT broken bones).  

Unfortunately, he continued to have knee pain, so we ordered an MRI.  The good news is that he did not have any cartilage damage that would require surgery. The MRI did show, however, that he had suffered a deep bone bruise in the accident. There is really not much that can be done other than to give the knee time to heal.

Now, in regards to your knee.  The x-rays are normal. As I stated above, this just means that you do not have any obvious broken bones.  It does not mean that you do not have an internal knee injury that simply doesn't show up on x-ray. You need to go back to your doctor and express your concern over your knee. He/she may or may not order an MRI at this time. HE/she might decide to give it a bit more time to see if it is tissue bruising that will simply heal up on its own.  The doctor should do an examination to help him to determine what the next course of action should be.

Thank you for the picture... but it simply is not enough, along with your narrative, for me to give you any valid ideas as to potential problems.  An MRI, on the other hand, is the state of the art Diagnosis tool for determining internal knee tissue damages.

Good luck with your knee and further recovery. I hope that everything goes well for you.

Keith Biggs, DC
http://www.eastmesachiropractor.com