Wakesurfing after Knee Injury (Bursitis)

So long story short, I have a really bad case of bursitis. There is a lump bigger than my knee cap below my knee cap. It went from marble size to this size in just under a month (mid novembe to now). I have had a sharp pain when kneeling there for about a year now, but no real problems until recently.

It has made me unable to work, hard to walk, hard to stand (I can't stand without a brace and/or cane for more than 5-10 minutes right now) definitely can't kneel, crawl, or bend at the knee. I currently can't work and am on disability due to the nature of my job which involves all of those things on a regular basis.

I am currently wearing a knee brace all the time except when I'm sleeping and using a cane to help get the weight off of my bad leg.
As of now I'm in physical therapy to try to help it out.

Has anyone else had this and continued to wakeboard or wakesurf after? Do these activites aggravte it? Could my riding this season (I have been out for about 5 seasons prior) have made it worse or accelerated it? I assume they would because of all the knee bending that goes on.

If you have had it, how long was it, what was the recovery like? How long did it take before you were back to normal, if you were back to normal? Does it come back and are you more prone to it coming back one having it?
Right now they have no time estimate for when it might be healed, but have me schedule on the physical therapy for a month to start.

It sucks it happened, but if anything, I'm glad it happened on the off season.

Any input on this would be helpful to give me a glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by phathom

So long story short, I have a really bad case of bursitis. There is a lump bigger than my knee cap below my knee cap. It went from marble size to this size in just under a month (mid novembe to now). I have had a sharp pain when kneeling there for about a year now, but no real problems until recently.

It has made me unable to work, hard to walk, hard to stand (I can't stand without a brace and/or cane for more than 5-10 minutes right now) definitely can't kneel, crawl, or bend at the knee. I currently can't work and am on disability due to the nature of my job which involves all of those things on a regular basis.

I am currently wearing a knee brace all the time except when I'm sleeping and using a cane to help get the weight off of my bad leg.
As of now I'm in physical therapy to try to help it out.

Has anyone else had this and continued to wakeboard or wakesurf after? Do these activites aggravte it? Could my riding this season (I have been out for about 5 seasons prior) have made it worse or accelerated it? I assume they would because of all the knee bending that goes on.

If you have had it, how long was it, what was the recovery like? How long did it take before you were back to normal, if you were back to normal? Does it come back and are you more prone to it coming back one having it?
Right now they have no time estimate for when it might be healed, but have me schedule on the physical therapy for a month to start.

It sucks it happened, but if anything, I'm glad it happened on the off season.

Any input on this would be helpful to give me a glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like your knee is pretty unhappy! Have you been to see an orthopedic doctor? There are several bursa in the knee and they can get pretty aggravated. But I have never seen a case of bursitis that is as debilitating as what you are describing. Are you sure it is bursitis and not Osgood-Schlatters? I have seen that get very debilitating.

Your physical therapist should be able to get you fixed up pretty quick. I have never seen a case of bursitis in the knee that did not respond to conservative treatment (rest, ice, anti-inflammatory meds, and physical therapy). I would think in 4-6 weeks you should be back doing whatever activities you want and need to do.

If you take care of this correctly you should have no long lasting effects. If you will continue with the stretching and exercise program (your PT will set up for you) long after you are done with PT then you should not have any problems in the future with re-occurrence.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions about it.

Thank you for that reply. That doesn't sound too bad. I saw an orthopedist first, he said it was bursitis after doing xrays. His staff being extremely rude and wanting to get me out asap without properly filling out my paperwork for work is why I went somewhere else. They ordered MRIs, but my insurance said physical therapy first. My physical therapist also said it's bursitis, so I think they're probably right.
It is definitely not a good time, my wife is due with our second kid 2 weeks from today. She is feeling.very overwhelmed.because she is having to do everything I was around the house, which was more than normal because of her being pregnant. I feel bad for that and tried to help out the other day and did the dishes. It took me over an hour to do what normally takes me 10 minutes.
I really hope I get more functional soon because she is having a cesarean and can't do hardly anything for weeks after so I have to take care of her better or not.

Congratulations on the new baby on the way! You need to get yourself well so you can take care of your wife and new baby.

How is physical Therapy going?

Taking care of my family is my first concern, getting back to work second, and wake sports last. My PT is going alright, the actual size of it has gone down, but the pain walking and bending hasn't. I'm getting a little bit better range of motion on the exercises they are having me do, but those of course are without pressure on the leg right now. The same motions while standing still hurt, it is definitely an injury affected by pressure.
Here is a pic of what it currently looks like after 2 weeks of rest and PT. Also a pic of what it was at the start. I did shave my knee after starting PT so the pads for the electric stimulation stick better, so that's the after. It does seem like it has gone down a bit, but it's not too noticeable how much.

"I have had a sharp pain when kneeling there for about a year now, but no real problems until recently."

^^^^^^^^^

I spent 20 year on my knees as an inboard diesel mechanic and yes I have had issues with Bursa sack inflammation. My left knee would require draining every few years when it would get bad. Recovery was always measured in days or weeks, not months or years and it never took PT.
It is an extremely uneducated guess on my part that something is boogered up in your knee from a mechanical standpoint. I would guess something is out of whack that is causing continued stress of the bursa and inflammation. A small splinter crack or spur would be all it takes.

I would highly suggest sourcing out a good sports ortho. for a closer look.

One warning that should taken seriously: The left knee would slough skin for weeks after a bursa incident. Five years ago I was absentmindedly picking at this skin while driving home on a Friday. Friday night I was fine, Saturday morning I was air lifted out on life support with crashing blood pressure. Cellulitus turned quickly to septicemia and I was in danger of loosing my leg and even my life. So please don't pick at that pink skin when the swelling goes down.
Good luck and get better.

John

Well 2 weeks of physical therapy and no/minimal change yet. They are only open a few days this week because of Christmas falling on Wednesday and were booked solid, so I can't get in this week. I am still doing the exercises at home though.
I need to do another week of physical therapy and then the insurance should green light a MRI.
My physical therapist says there should be some obvious changes by now if it is Bursitis, he now things it may be something else entirely, or a combination of Bursitis and something else.
There is no way to make sure without a MRI. Until then I just have to stick to the game plan and wait for the Insurance to OK one to see what the real problem is.

Although I did ask him if wakeboarding and wakesurfing affected it or contributed to it. He said they would not, (assuming it is bursits) that it would only be, being on my knees. He also said, because of the exercise and stretching from watersports, that they probably actually helped put off how long it would be until it came about, this being because it showed up 2 weeks after our season ended.
I did ask him if since it was beneficial to keeping my knee healthy, if he would ever consider writing me a Doctor's note prescribing wakesurfing. He laughed, agreed that exercsie is good for it, but said no to the note

Are you getting your PT at rebound? if so, your booked solid experience was exactly why I told you to avoid them. my wife had to do PT sessions for two different injuries and the clinics she used never had the lack of availability that Rebound had. The doctors even warned us that if we went somewhere besides Rebound it'd be better for availability...

After sitting on the phone for a half hour on hold so someone could me an appointment, I figured they would be too booked up, and if I or especially my disability case worker need to talk to someone, waiting that long would be unacceptable.
I went to a smaller practice in the same building as my doctor, wherd they know me by face and name. Good place, just christmas time scheduling woes which are to be expected.

Man that does not look good. Hard to tell from just a picture...but does not look like bursitis. Looks more like Osgood Schlatters to me. Or something going on with where your patellar tendon attaches to your tibia (tibial tuberosity). Maybe a fracture in the tuberosity or a growth of some sort. Either way I would push for the MRI ASAP since you are seeing very little improvement.

Too bad you don't live local to me. I could get you in for PT today. :-)

UPDATE:
I did about 5 weeks of PT before the insurance approved the MRI. I am set to go in this evening for it.
The swelling of that lump has gone down about 60%, so that's good. However from how much instability I have in my leg, my physical therapist suspects that I may have a torn or disconnected ligament or tendon. Also he believes that do to that my knee cap has shifted to the outside of my leg, not allowing my knee to rotate how it should. He has tested and treated this by taping it in my sessions and it does help stabilize it to some degree.
I will update with the MRI results when I get them.

UPDATE:
MRI came back clean, minus saying there is bursitis caused by repetitive trauma to the knee (kneeling, crawling) So that's good news.
I saw a knee specialist as well. The knee specialist said that from the x-ray and MRI that it looked like I had Osgood Schlater on my right nee at some time, even if it wasn't diagnosed then. The increased size of the bone on that side because of it, is why that knee got it and not the left knee. Basically more surface beating up the bursa sack. He also told me that if treated right away, it wouldn't have taken nearly as long to heal or gotten as bad, but the fact I waited a few weeks to go in without changing anything, let it get so big and take so long to heal.
The PT has been going good, very well in the past 2 weeks. I was able to ditch my cane and knee brace last week. I am walking normal again, I just still can't kneel or crawl yet or carry a bunch of weight. I am headed back to work tomorrow more than likely.

Glad it is getting better for you!

Well I'm back at work regular duty. This is my second week now and I'm doing great. Moving around and doing more actually helped me heal faster. That part of my knee is still a little sensitive when I have to get down on it, but over all back to normal.
I'm excited for this upcoming season and just bought my first wakesurf board online. I can't wait for the season to start so I can try it out.