Life With My Girls: Brielle’s Mystery knee

I know that I had said that I would be done posting for awhile but things don’t ever go as planned in this household!!!!! Brielle’s mystery knee problem showed back up on Monday..A little background for those of you that are new and not aware of what has been going on…This has been going on ever since Brielle was two..She just woke up one morning and couldn’t walk or straighten her left knee. It is always the left knee and always hurts from behind the knee..At first it stayed like that all week long and I was carrying her everywhere..then it would go away and show back up for a couple of days..and it went off and on like that until she was 4 and that was in 2007. Well we did several tests including blood work like testing for lime disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and so on…the list kept going on..tests would come back negative and they would think of more things to test for so we would go and do more blood work..nothing was showing up on the million of xrays she had done either.. and finally we did an MRI and nothing showed up on that too..one dr would pass me on to another dr bc they didn’t know..so I went to many different drs. I went to a rheumatoid arthritis dr to and he thought it wasn’t JRA {juvenile rheumatoid arthritis} bc the blood work was coming back negative and she wasn’t have any other flare ups anywhere else it was always the same knee and also they are never red, hot to the touch which I guess is possible with arthritis flare ups. So finally I wrote to our Shriners Hospital here and asked if they would see her bc I was tired of spending all this money on all these different testes and then just getting passed onto the next dr and basically starting all over and always getting the same end result of I don’t know what is wrong with your daugther. The Shriners Hospital down here is for joints, muscles, and bones { apparently different Shriners hospitals focus on different things} so since I thought that one was right here maybe I would get some answers. So I was delighted when I heard back from them saying that they would take her on as a patient. So we went to them and they basically told us that there was nothing they could do bc she wasn’t having a flare up at the moment and they didn’t have any answers either but to come back the minute she starts to have a flare up again so they can actually see it in action. So that is what we did…we waited…and we waited..and waited some more..that was in 2007.WE went four years with NO flare ups of anything!! I thought it just fixed itself and went away and we were done with it.
Well flash forward to the present….On Monday she wakes up and is complaining of her knee hurting her..and I really don’t think anything of it and don’t even look at it and tell her it will probably go away as the day goes on { I feel super bad that I did that!!!} So on Tuesday she wakes up and tells me it hurts really bad and I tell her once again that she probably just slept wrong on it and it will go away {again I feel super bad!!!} so then when she came home from school she wrapped it and said that it helped to support it a little..then as I was making super a huge ole LIGHT BULB went off in my head!!!!! Oh dur this is the same thing that happened so long ago!!!!! So I sat her down and really looked at it and found out where the pain was once again in the back of the leg and realized that she really couldn’t straighten it at all. So then that night when she was sleeping I snuck into her room and tried to straighten it just to make sure she wasn’t making anything up {after the whole glasses incident I just wanted to make sure;)}and sure enough in her sleep I couldn’t even straighten it.
So I called Shriners up first thing in the morning and talked to the receptionist and explained the situation and just wanted to see if I could bring her in still even though it had been so long bc they were the last ones seeing her for the situation. They talked with the nurses/dr.s and called me back to let me know that she could be seen in the clinic the next day..Praise God!! Whew bc I didn’t know who I was going to call if they said no bc her family dr just left his practice last month so we would have had to start all over again!!
Today we went to Shriners then and yes her leg was knee was still having problems so they really got to see it during a flare up. They did comment and say it is inflamed in her knee..and we went over a lot of stuff.and basically the dr said she was a huge puzzle to him!!! bc everything that you would think it is well then something throws him off and it kind of rules itself out.

This is our plan though we are going to do a 3 Tesla MRI scan on her knee. It is a higher quality vascular imaging then a regular MRI so they are hopeful that it will show something the other one didn’t. IM not holding my breath though bc it isn't until the 15th of this month and by then it will probably go away and then it wont be hurting her when she is having the MRI. The one dr through out there possible discoid meniscus but once again she doesn’t have the popping that goes along with it so they really don’t know. A discoid meniscus is an abnormally shaped meniscus within the knee joint. The meniscus is a C-shaped wedge of cartilage that helps support and cushion the knee joint. In each knee there are two menisci, one on the inside (medial) and one on the outside (lateral) of the knee joint. In some people the lateral meniscus is shaped more like a solid disc rather than the normal C-shape.
Most people with a discoid meniscus never know they have it! Many people live normal, active lives with a discoid meniscus--even high performance athletes. Therefore, if your doctor finds that you have a discoid meniscus, but it is not the cause of your symptoms, it would be left alone.
In some people, the discoid meniscus can cause problems, usually a popping sensation with pain over the outside part of the knee joint. This is why some people use the phrase 'popping knee syndrome' when talking about a discoid meniscus. In these patients, conservative treatment consisting of exercises and stretching can be performed. If these treatments do not relieve the symptoms, patients may choose arthroscopic surgery on the discoid meniscus. If the discoid meniscus is torn, the torn portion can be removed. In addition, the discoid meniscus can be shaved into a more normal appearing meniscus.
So here is the picture they drew me…

and here is a better one that I found online:)

But they think maybe it could be a torn meniscus or meniscus pathology. They said that they will wait to see what the MRI comes back and set us up to come back and see the sports injury dr. to go over the results. They do both really feel it is more of a physical problem in her knee then anything else bc it always happens in her same knee and all the blood work has been negative. They also said that we can do a knee scope next if the MRI is negative to get in there to see what is going on too. Really they don’t know they just want to tell u something to make you feel better Bc when the dr was getting ready to leave the room he said I wish I could tell you what is wrong with her I am really puzzled with her and I know this is probably frustrating to not know what is wrong with your daughter. Well of course!!!! They sent her home with some crutches to use and to help her support herself walking bc before she was just kind of wobbling around on her tippy toes of her one leg. She only needs them if it is hurting her badly and having problems walking. SO that pretty much sums it up!!!
This is what happens when you are in a room waiting for the dr. for THREE hours!!!! You be a kid again and color your heart out and enjoy the quietness!!!!:)