[0:00]My name is Alex and I'm making this video to talk about fractured patellas. There's not much information on YouTube about this, so I thought I'd make this video to spread the word about what to expect. And maybe give you some tips, too. So, uh, four months ago, I fractured my left patella. It was a it was a transverse fracture that was displaced, so I need to have surgery to screw and wire it back together. And I just I tripped on my driveway, I don't have good story, sorry. Hopefully yours is better. And it was a pretty devastating injury and I want to tell you about my road to recovery and I want to give you some tips. So, first of all, I I had the surgery. I had a real good surgeon here in Reno. And he he screwed me back together just fine. I the surgeon I had a femoral nerve block, which worked really well until it wore off 24 hours later, and when it did, the pain hit me like a ton of bricks. So, um, one tip I want to give is be sure you you take your your narcotic pain meds ahead of time before the the nerve block wears off, because if you don't and you let the pain get ahead of the pain meds like I did, it was it was pretty bad and I couldn't sleep. And I had to take kind of a one and a half times dose of my Oxycodone to kind of get ahead of it just so just so I could sleep. Um, with narcotic pain meds comes constipation. So, what I used is this Miralax, and my wife would make me a a green smoothie every day and put this Miralax in it, and that worked fine, I didn't have any problems when she did that. Um, one tip I want to give you is don't use frozen peas like I did when the doctor says to ice your knee 20 minutes out of every hour. Just buy it a right tool for the job. This is a Chattanooga cold pack. I got it on eBay for about 20 bucks, and it's totally worth it, it's great. You're going to be using it for the next couple of months, so just buy, buy it. It it there's no comparison between a real ice pack and a bag of frozen peas, I found out. Um, and that could have been some of my complications could have been maybe from improper icing, I don't know. So, you're going to be immobilized for for say six weeks, that's what my surgeon had me immobilized for. Um, you want to eat well because your muscle's going to be wasting away this whole time when you're not using your quad or hamstring, and I lost about 50% of my muscle mass. So, I lost 20 pounds in five weeks. So, one thing I'm doing now is I'm I'm doing exercise and physical therapy and I'm taking protein powder to try to try to gain some muscle back. I think it's working, I've I've gained 10 pounds back. So, when you're immobilized for six weeks, I started out with this immobilizing brace that they gave me in the emergency room. It's okay, it's hot, it was uncomfortable. So, I mentioned that to my orthopedic surgeon and I got a different brace. I got the orthopedic surgeon office. This one was they build my insurance $700, which is ridiculous, but that's what they did. And this one became very uncomfortable, well, it it was locked at zero movement first. And this one became very uncomfortable, too, so I had pieces of foam of varying thickness to put in here. That helped a lot, but still, it it gets uncomfortable because it rubs on the same spot all the time, and it's just it drives you crazy. So, what I did is I ordered another brace on eBay. This one was 50 bucks and I actually mixed and matched the pads between it to try to find the most comfortable solution, and I finally did with the the pads from the eBay one with the frame from the from the one from the orthopedic's office. And that was the best result, but just the fact that you can change braces makes all the difference in the world. So, I recommend that. It wasn't very much money for how much comfort it it brought me. So, after being immobilized for six weeks, I was allowed to go to physical therapy. Um, the fact that your leg has a such a devastating injury and then surgery, which is more injury, uh, it makes a lot of scar tissue. And I could only bend my knee 37 degrees when I first physical therapy appointment. At 37 degrees, you you can't walk right, you can't you pretty much can't do anything, it's almost like a stiff leg. You can't use your knee at all. So, um, the physical therapist, you know, promised you it would get better, so I did all the exercises I was supposed to do and kept going to physical therapy, and I got up to 65 degrees, and then it kind of plateaued there. I'm going to put my my graph up on the screen, so you can see it the the flat area. So, I actually, my my surgeon wasn't real concerned, he said it was normal, but I sought a second opinion and I went to a surgeon out of San Francisco named Dr. Dye, Dr. Scott Dye. He was on the arthrofibrosis society website, arthrofibrosis foundation. And he did a manipulation under anesthesia to my leg, and I guess it's kind of controversial. I looked on forums and a lot of people recommended against that, but I'm so glad he did that, it helped me because he got me right up to 115 degrees, which is about here. And he also gave me a picture of my knee bent, you know, all the way, which is I don't know, it gives me confidence on my physical therapy that it actually can bend. Because, you know, after you've been to you can only go this far before extreme pain, but you know, I I know it's possible to bend it further, and through more physical therapy, it got up to, I am up to 145 degrees now, which to me is full functionality. I mean, my other knee goes 155, but I even if I don't progress anymore than this, I'm happy with it. Uh, the physical therapy does hurt. It hurt me a lot the the stretching. I didn't I didn't cry in the office, but I'm not going to lie, I was close. Uh, but it's all worth it. I did all the exercises she gave me because, you know, it's only to help me, so.
[6:39]So, I'm at I'm at 16, so 16 weeks, four months now post surgery, and I can ride a bike 10 miles. I can ride a bike for an hour, I can walk a mile, some pain, but it's all it's getting better all the time. Um, I can you saw I can bend my knee 145 degrees, I can I can squat somewhat, put some weight on the bad knee. Anyway, I'm I'm healing, um, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And this an injury this devastating, a lot of it is mental as much as it is physical. So, you're strong, you can you're going to get through it. You just have to power through it and do everything your your physical therapist and and surgeon tell tell you to do. So, I wish you the best of luck.
