Knee bone bruises questions

[peterslovo]

Finally saw my ortho after my road bike accident back on Oct 18th; basically hit the pavement with my knee at 30 mph.

Anyway, doc says I have pre-patellar busitis, and pretty severe bone bruising of the medial femoral condyle and the medial tibial plateau from the direct impact, but does not think anything is torn. However, he did not suggest we should do an MRI at this point. Xrays were negative for fractures. He said it could take (I quote) "quite a while" to heal and to see him in a month or so if things are still hurting to re-evaluate, as such injuries can mask a meniscal tear - time will tell. He wouldn't give me a timeframe for things to fully heal, just said to continue with activity within my pain limits and make sure I don't fall on it again. Put me on Relafen for a month and sent me on my way.

It's been about 2 weeks now and things are tiny bit better, swelling has reduced, but still quite painful, still limping, and occasionally something pinches in there when I bend my knee the wrong way. Only activity thus far has been swimming and that seems to aggravate it while kicking. I've taken a very slow, cautious MTB ride (road bike still not fixed up) and things felt ok while peddling. I have started my old meniscus rehab stuff in the meantime, and have been icing 1-2 times a day to keep the swelling down.

I searched "bone bruise" here on TGR and came up with a bunch of hits related to bruising associated with ACL tears, and someone having their bone bruise "scooped out" to remove dead bone - yuck! Also did some google searching and couldn't find anything in terms of timeframes.

Anyway, since there are lots o' gimps amongst us:

Can you severely bruise these 2 areas of bone and not damage your articular cartiladge of the knee? I forgot to ask my doc about this.

Since he did not give me a timefrime..what could I expect in terms of the healing time for bone bruises in these locations to heal back to no pain? A month, two months?

Thanks.

[Vinman]

yes you can have a bone bruise and not effect articular cartilage, just all depends on where the bruise is. But if the articular cartilage was bruised that could end up with something like an osteochondral defect.

most bone bruises will last anywhere from 6-8 wks.

now that the swelling has reduced you can do some heat pack/warm soaks/hot tub. this will help with the swelling and possibly help with healing. Ie. heat brongs more blood to the area, fresh blood has O2 that cells need to repair, also brings in WBC's to clean up damaged/dead tissue.

the pinching sensation might be the most significant piece of info. indicates mechanics symptoms. mecanical symptoms = either meniscal tear or articular cartilage damage.

but some emniscus tears if the are small and in the right area of the meniscus can heal on their own in about 6 weeks. If that pinching is still there in 6 weeks it is likely not going to heal and you might need to have something done to fix it.