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Pain in the Knee that wasn’t Replaced
One of my teaching assistants, Patti, just had a full knee replacement on her right side. The surgery went well and her rehab is going very well so far. The only issue is that her left knee is killing her.
X-rays show no damage to the left knee and good space in the joint. Her doctor says she has strained popliteus. She has told all of her support team that it feels like the femur and tibia are not aligned.
When I began to work on her this week, she told me the same thing. In my initial palpation popliteus felt inhibited. I checked the position of the bones and found that both bones were anterior. The femur slightly and the tibia more than slightly. Stabilizing the femur above the knee, I moved the tibia anterior and held it there for 30 seconds. When I released it popliteus suddenly had tone and all of her pain was gone.
It would have been lovely if that were the only issue and just like that in 30 seconds it was fixed, but why was the tibia anterior to begin with. Well it turned out her talus was anterior, the muscles in her anterior lower leg felt like a block of wood, her foot needed work, and when I got to the hip I realized that her left glute max and upper hamstrings were inhibited as well.
We did 2 sessions and when we finished she was aligned, the muscles were holding tone, and she had no pain. Which was fabulous….for a moment. Because of the surgery and the dysfunction for years before the surgery, the left leg is overwhelmed, her gait is off (as it should be during her rehabilitation from knee replacement), and her left leg is likely to go back into its compensation pattern.
Luckily Patti knows what to do to correct and maintain it while she finishes rehabbing.
We have one opening left for both our SMRT: Hips & Sacrum and SMRT: Thigh & Knee courses in Tampa, FL, December 5-7, 2014. You can take both courses or only 1 course. For more information or to register, please go to https://efullcircle.com/workshop-schedule.
