Knee Dislocation - Torn LCL, PCL, & MCL

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JIUJIT5U

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Need some advice/feedback from others that have experienced severe knee injuries from training. I dislocated my knee about 7 weeks ago training for the Worlds and I've been in a full leg brace and crutches ever since. The knee injury was probably a direct result from overtraining, fatigue, jetlag (recently flew back from overseas) or a combination of all the above. A much taller & heavier opponent jumped guard on me and my knee buckled inwards tearing my LCL, PCL, & MCL. This is my first major injury during my 6 years of training. I've had both shoulders dislocated, hairline fracture on my foot, bulging disc L5 & others but this is by far the worst (cause I'll be out for at least 6 months from training). All the others injuries I've been able to come back with a toned down approach.

What I want to know is how many of you roll on a daily basis with a hinged brace to prevent ligament damage? Has the brace injured your opponent during training? If you experienced any torn ligaments in the knee, did you choose to avoid surgery altogether and strengthen the supporting muscles around your knee? Do you feel any instability in the knee when wearing the brace & rolling? Any specific positions that causes pain in the knee (i.e. opponent puts the lockdown on your leg, etc...)

Downtime sucks! I'm just thankful that my knee is still intact. Docs were telling me the high percentage of amputations resulting from knee dislocations and that I've been one of the "lucky" individuals.

Nowadays, I still go to class on a daily basis to watch everyone spar and coach some of the lower belts. It's surprising how much you can improve your game by watching others roll. But just from these few weeks of observing from the sidelines and doing my research online, knee injuries have got to be public enemy #1 for BJJ and MMA.
 
Amputation ??? WTF !!!!

Yeah I'm very scared of knee injuries. And it ends up influencing my training : I avoid rolling with heavier people, let myself be taken down & thrown very easily, give up position easily when I feel awkward pressure on my knee, etc.

Good luck with your injury, heal fast !

Cheers.
 
Did you have Gangrene in your fucking knee or some shit?

I have not had such an injury, but have had partial tear of the LCL (nothing major). Actually curious whether there are any rehab-type exercises you can do to increase the strength of knee ligaments before injury. Anyone know if this works?
 
I completely ruptured my LCL & sprained my ACL about 6 weeks ago in training, and the best advice would be DONT TRAIN until your ligaments are 100%. A lot of people start rolling before they're 100% and end up having persisting injuries many years after. I've still got another 6-8 weeks until I'll be able to actually roll again, and I've been suggested to ease back into it (obviously) and shouldn't need to wear anything other than a little knee support.

As for surgery, when two or more ligaments are gone, surgery is generally the most common route to recovery however it'd just be what your doctor/specialist suggests based on how stable your knee feels among other factors.

Oh and I shouldn't need surgery to heal mainly because my knee is still surprisingly stable, doctors just said to rest my knee & keep it in a brace.
 
Omg that's scary because earlier this week someone pulled gaurd on me And my knee bent inward but I was lucky enough not to get hurt. I will be more careful from now on.

Dude I wish u the best of luck and hope u recover as fast as possible.
 
Man! That's terrible man. I have no advice to give you myself. Just listen to your doctors, I guess.

I dislocated my knee 4 or 5 years ago myself, but I was a lucky one. I didn't have any tears or anything. All that happened was that the paramedics popped it back in. Pretty scary!

Well, maybe I do have some advice. Please just take care of yourself. I know many people rush back in because they want to train and compete. With an injury as severe-sounding as that, take your time in coming back. Wouldn't want to mess up your knee even worse.
 
1. Guys at my place do roll with acl knee braces on and it's not a big deal.

2. No knee brace can stop a knee from blowing out. If your knee is that unstable then it's not ready. I for one would avoid standing sparring for a long friggin time.
 
I tore my MCL about 7 years ago (snowboarding, coming off a rail). I barely avoided having to have surgery through tons of rehab. problem was, as soon as I started feeling better, I gave up on my rehab and went back to working out, running and snowboarding. I never healed 100% or properly, and there are days where I have to wear a brace, just while walking around.

my suggestion, stay the fark away from working out at all on that knee until you are 100% better, or you will ALWAYS have problems.
 
I tore my ACL about three years ago...got surgery...did everything the rehab guy told me...and it is STRONGER than my other knee now.

For ligaments it is absolutely crucial for you to let them heal. Otherwise, you won't be able to walk in ten years.
L
Good news: you don't have to stop training. I went back one month after surgery and just worked on side mount and mount defenses. Now, I got a wicked defensive game from the bottom.

Just look for the silver lining while waiting to heal, you'll learn something you wouldn't have otherwise.
 
there are people at most of the academies that I've been to that roll with a hinged brace. It can be bothersome for both the person rolling in it and the person that you're rolling with, but overall it's not that big of a deal. When it comes to keeping yourself healthy and in a physical state where you can still train it doesnt matter about the minor inconvenience.

I agree with the above poster that you shouldnt do any stand up sparring for a long time. I also suggest that you are very selective with who you roll. Hopefully after 6 year's you're a purple belt and have the ability to pick and choose the people that you roll with.

My suggestion is to work on half guard :D

Good luck and I hope you have a speedy recovery
 
Fedorzilla said:
I have not had such an injury, but have had partial tear of the LCL (nothing major). Actually curious whether there are any rehab-type exercises you can do to increase the strength of knee ligaments before injury. Anyone know if this works?
Click to expand...

You can increase the strength of ligaments but not as quickly as muscles. Good old fashion squats are your friend. Go ass to grass on the squats, full range of motion that is. Start with body squats and progress to weighted squats. There are others but for developing strength in the muscles of the legs, increasing bone density (ie. strength) and ligament strength squats are king. Include some pistol squats as they are great for developing the stability muscles around the knees and therefore ligaments as well.

JRT6 said:
2. No knee brace can stop a knee from blowing out. If your knee is that unstable then it's not ready. I for one would avoid standing sparring for a long friggin time.
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This right here, lay off it for the three to six weeks (or whatever your doctor tells you) do the rehab. If I remember right all these ligaments will heal on their own. If it will heal on it's own I'd let the body do it's thing. If it was an ACL that can't heal on it's own I'd say get the surgery. Even if you do decide to have surgery start doing rehab as soon as possible, you will have muscle degredation after surgery and "pre-hab" will help make it not as bad. I did pre-hab for my knee when I tore my acl, mcl, bucket handle tear of the meniscus and crack in the top of the tibia and I was still back at BJJ in eight months. I give a lot of that to the pre-hab and the fact I did re-hab every day three times a day.

I have never heard of amputation of a joint after a dislocation unless there is a pinching of an artery. I'm pretty sure that is what the doctor was talking about.
 
Another thing to consider when playing sports with knee braces, sometimes they cause injuries when they slip and get out of alignment with the knee. My doctor dosen't want his athletes running around in the them.
 
Dear God thats horrific. I can offer no advice but will pray for you.
 
SMillard said:
You can increase the strength of ligaments but not as quickly as muscles. Good old fashion squats are your friend. Go ass to grass on the squats, full range of motion that is. Start with body squats and progress to weighted squats. There are others but for developing strength in the muscles of the legs, increasing bone density (ie. strength) and ligament strength squats are king. Include some pistol squats as they are great for developing the stability muscles around the knees and therefore ligaments as well.



This right here, lay off it for the three to six weeks (or whatever your doctor tells you) do the rehab. If I remember right all these ligaments will heal on their own. If it will heal on it's own I'd let the body do it's thing. If it was an ACL that can't heal on it's own I'd say get the surgery. Even if you do decide to have surgery start doing rehab as soon as possible, you will have muscle degredation after surgery and "pre-hab" will help make it not as bad. I did pre-hab for my knee when I tore my acl, mcl, bucket handle tear of the meniscus and crack in the top of the tibia and I was still back at BJJ in eight months. I give a lot of that to the pre-hab and the fact I did re-hab every day three times a day.

I have never heard of amputation of a joint after a dislocation unless there is a pinching of an artery. I'm pretty sure that is what the doctor was talking about.
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First off, thanks everyone for your input. Much appreciated.

SMillard - are you a PT or do you just know your stuff from your pre-hab stage? Thanks for the great advice on re-habbing my knee. I'm just barely starting to get my ROM back and doing body weight squats. Someone told me to keep working my good leg and strengthening it because it will prevent my injured leg from atrophying further because the body will somehow try to balance itself (not sure if this is true or not). The MCL will heal on it's own and if I had just an isolated PCL injury (I wish!) then I could probably live without it. But because the LCL is torn it's causing an even greater laxity in my knee. When my OS does the "opening drawer" test on my knee I can see the noticeable laxity in my injured knee when compared to my good knee. How long did you wait to have surgery and "pre-hab" your knee after your injury? Unfortunately it won't be an arthroscopic procedure for my case.

And yes, my doctors were referring to leg amputations from knee dislocations that have had vascular injuries (like HomerPlata posted) such as the popliteal artery. Knee dislocations are actually rare. Lots of people dislocate their patella and think it's a knee dislocation when it isn't. My knee dislocation looked exactly like Jared Hess's knee in his Bellator fight when he dislocated it. I'm sure Mike Brown's knee was dislocated too after the heel hook from Imanari at Deep 22.
 
JIUJIT5U said:
First off, thanks everyone for your input. Much appreciated.

SMillard - are you a PT or do you just know your stuff from your pre-hab stage? Thanks for the great advice on re-habbing my knee. I'm just barely starting to get my ROM back and doing body weight squats. Someone told me to keep working my good leg and strengthening it because it will prevent my injured leg from atrophying further because the body will somehow try to balance itself (not sure if this is true or not). The MCL will heal on it's own and if I had just an isolated PCL injury (I wish!) then I could probably live without it. But because the LCL is torn it's causing an even greater laxity in my knee. When my OS does the "opening drawer" test on my knee I can see the noticeable laxity in my injured knee when compared to my good knee. How long did you wait to have surgery and "pre-hab" your knee after your injury? Unfortunately it won't be an arthroscopic procedure for my case.

And yes, my doctors were referring to leg amputations from knee dislocations that have had vascular injuries (like HomerPlata posted) such as the popliteal artery. Knee dislocations are actually rare. Lots of people dislocate their patella and think it's a knee dislocation when it isn't. My knee dislocation looked exactly like Jared Hess's knee in his Bellator fight when he dislocated it. I'm sure Mike Brown's knee was dislocated too after the heel hook from Imanari at Deep 22.
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No I'm not a PT, I'm one of those anal retentive nerds that when something happens to him he becomes immersed in the topic. Add to that the personal experience along with discussions from people with similar injuries which comes from a lifetime of playing rugby, hockey and combat sports, so I know a lot of people that have injured knees, backs, necks and I know quite a bit about concussions too if you are ever unfortunate enough to get one of those (I've had four).

my knee injury was in the middle of December of 07, I had surgery at the end of February, I didn't start the prehab until January since it is better to wait until the swelling goes down enough for movement of the joint.

As far as people saying go on without the surgery, one thing I noticed in that my knee was damaged before I finally blew out the acl was that sudden jarring was something that muscle development couldn't compensate for. When my OS did the drawer test on me my muscle development was good enough that he couldn't get much movement, but if I was distracted and he did it it moved quite a bit. In any sport like a combat sport you have to expect you are going to take shots or movements that your body won't have time to react to. That is my reason why surgery to repair the ligaments is recommended, but that is ultimately going to be between you and your OS.

The fact your surgery won't be arthroscopic does suck but isn't the end of the world, my mother had a complete knee replacement with the big metal hinge knee and she was pretty much back to normal for her in under a year. The technology has come a long way on knee surgeries, the only thing is the time off and the recovery does suck, it is time consuming, painful, frustrating and can be expensive. That being said it is worth it in my opinion.

As far as training the good knee so it doesn't atrophy like the bad knee, that is pretty much not true. Your good leg will be carrying the load when you are on crutches, you will be more dependent on it so in fact it will develop more during that time. The problem is some people on work on the "rehab" knee and ignore the good knee. This causes more of an imbalance. That is why you really have to work out both legs when you do rehab, if I did leg lifts on the rehab knee I'd do them on the good knee as well if nothing else it is something to do while you are resting between sets for the rehab.

Check out University of Oklahoma for standards for rehab, for some reason they have the standard that most people follow, or a variant of it.

Good luck, hope things work out for you.
 
Hey I joined just to post about this!!
On the 30/3/10 I tore my ACL, LCL, PCL, partial MCL, medial meniscus, and my hamstring tendon !!!! we were training no gi, but essential it was a judo throw that did it. I was told by 2 surgeons I will need a walking stick for ever... I've had traditional and synthetic reconstructions done.. The only I can suggest after having my knee locked straight for 3 months and 4 months of phsyio daily,.
Is to keep a positive outlook, I'm currently 3 months ahead of were my surgeon thought I'd be. At this stage I'm not looking at training again ( I desperately want to) I'm looking at what's directly in front of me. Walking properly, then running in the next couple of months etc. My MSG is anything is possible, stay strong and believe me this shit is 95% in your head. My surgeon said he's never seen anyone heal like me and its because I decided on the 1st night in ER that this will not stop me. If you want any advice or to have a chat PM.
Sorry this got a bit long !!!
 
some of you are really scaring me with your stories :icon_cry2
 
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