Long story short. Had medial knee pain in my left knee in the beginning of October 2014. Took a couple of days off, but didn't work. Thought I'd just pedal through it, which meant that after a couple of weeks I had to stop during a session because my knee hurt way too much. The day after I experienced having knee pain when the knee had been bent for too long. Since then I've been to numerous PT's, tried the RICE principles, eased back into training, etc with no luck. As it is right now I don't have pain in my knee, but a really weird sensation. If I ride my bike for too long I get a very uncomfortable feeling in my knee - it feels like the plica is rubbing against my kneecap.
A couple of months ago I went to an orthopedic surgeon who told me it definately was a plica, although my MRI didn't show it. It did however show the presence of a bakers cyste - so something had to cause irritation in my knee. She wanted me to take some NSAIDs for 10 days to see if it would help. After 10 days, it hadn't really helped, so I got a cortisone injection. It's two weeks since I got the injection, and I've been told not to ride my bike, aside from getting to and from work, for 4 weeks. I can't really feel a difference in the knee - and if I could I would probably be hesitant to give the injection full credit. Afterall I've not been riding my bike for 4 weeks, so some decrease in inflammation should probably be felt.
I've been reading a lot about plicas. If I understand it correctly, an irritated plica can become fibrotic, which means that traditional means to reduce inflammation won't work. Anybody know if that is correct?
Also, is it possible for a plica to cause that much trouble without giving pain? Most litterature suggests that the plica is painful. Right now, my plica isn't painful at all, but I'm thinking that it has become so inflammed/fibrotic that it takes up too much room in my knee.
If the cortisone injection doesn't work, next step is either to give up riding my bike forever or getting surgery to have the plica removed.
A couple of months ago I went to an orthopedic surgeon who told me it definately was a plica, although my MRI didn't show it. It did however show the presence of a bakers cyste - so something had to cause irritation in my knee. She wanted me to take some NSAIDs for 10 days to see if it would help. After 10 days, it hadn't really helped, so I got a cortisone injection. It's two weeks since I got the injection, and I've been told not to ride my bike, aside from getting to and from work, for 4 weeks. I can't really feel a difference in the knee - and if I could I would probably be hesitant to give the injection full credit. Afterall I've not been riding my bike for 4 weeks, so some decrease in inflammation should probably be felt.
I've been reading a lot about plicas. If I understand it correctly, an irritated plica can become fibrotic, which means that traditional means to reduce inflammation won't work. Anybody know if that is correct?
Also, is it possible for a plica to cause that much trouble without giving pain? Most litterature suggests that the plica is painful. Right now, my plica isn't painful at all, but I'm thinking that it has become so inflammed/fibrotic that it takes up too much room in my knee.
If the cortisone injection doesn't work, next step is either to give up riding my bike forever or getting surgery to have the plica removed.