Case Summary  |  Bad Knees for Seven Years

Summary:
At about 13 years old (I'm now 21), I developed a serious knee problem that made it painful to use my knees in any way. This included walking down stairs, landing jumps (snowboard), or do any sort of squat (lifting a box up off the ground). Stress on my knees hurt bad. The problem persisted until I was 20 because of a bad diagnosis and useless physical therapy recommendations, but I got an MRI with a proper diagnosis and a good physical therapist.

Details:
At 13 I was an avid snowboarder, but my landings started hurting my knees more and more, particularly my left knee. At some point I realized that falling didn't hurt as much as landing jumps because it didn't involve my knees, so I went to the doctor. He diagnosed me with patella femoral syndrome, a general kneecap pain syndrome where things aren't quite lined up correctly. I was told there's not much I can do, and he put me on daily dose of ibuprofen (2400 mg) and instructed me to flex my quads while straight legged for 30 seconds, 20 times a day. Didn't help at all. Because it hurt to use my knees, I avoided bending from the knees, I avoided going up or down stairs, and I generally avoided using anything that made use of my quadriceps. This made my quads atrophy, which compounded the knee pain. I went back to the doctor at 16 and told to do the same thing again. Did nothing, of course. Ibuprofen helped, but it masked the underlying problem that the physical therapy didn't help. Freshman year of college I went to a different doctor who suggested I get an MRI.

Turned out that I had a benign bone tumor (an osteochondroma), right above my left kneecap. The muscle moving the kneecap was trying to go over the tumor, pushing my knee cap off to the side. That accounted for the increased pain in my left knee. I'm also unlucky enough to have patella femoral in both knees.

The doctor recommended a physical therapist, who recommend that I seriously strengthen my knees by doing a lot of squats. He said it would hurt like hell for the first month or two of doing them, but I needed to do them in order to have the muscle absorb the stress of bending my knees and impacts instead of having my kneecaps absorb them. It did hurt like hell, but it also worked. I soon started road biking, which helped build my quads even more. Now I'm snowboarding again, jumping, going down stairs, and everything else that uses my knees, and I can barely feel any pain. I just have to be sure to keep my quads strong and check on the tumor every few years.