Knee Injury

[Saluki]

First, let me say that I recently got accepted into NavalFlightSchool through NROTC. I commission May 5th.

I have had one ACL repair and a follow up surgery because it was still giving me pain. After a year and a half of rehab I finally recovered and passed my flight physical with flying colors in Pensacola, FL.

I recently injured my knee OCT 30 and got an MRI DEC 15 with the results that I have a torn oblique posterior horn of medial meniscus. I have not seen an orthopedic yet so I do not know if it will need a surgical answer. I stopped running for about a month and have just started running again with little or no pain. Before this injury my knee felt like new and I was running and doing calisthenics daily.

Do you think this could DQ me from flight if another surgery were required? Or just the fact that I injured it again could that be disqualifying?

 

[FlyinRock]

Only the flight surgeon can answer that one. If you are having problems with a knee, why in hell don't you wrap it and protect it? I got mine torn up in a ski accident years back and did surgery. Now if I'm gonna do anytihing that might cause problems I wrap both of them to prevent having to go back and get more surgery. Pain is a great teacher.

 

[Saluki]

Yeah I agree with you. I actually had somebody jump on my back and my knee went sideways. Its not the way I want to injure myself but shit happens. It was outside of any type of physical activity. My knee at the time was performing extremely well and pain free. It feels now that it is healing but extremely slow. I can run but I am doing it very controlled so that I do not hurt it anymore than it is. As far as a Navy PRT I can still get an outstanding on it even with this injury. It just hurts afterwards and my range of motion is still affected. I just do not know what I am up against with NAMI. I hope this can heal without surgery!

 

[feddoc]

I had a complete meniscal removal. I was back on my feet in two days and back flying in a month or so.

Navy docs will care about you being pain free and retaining full, or close to full, range of motion.

BTW, unless you consult with an athletic trainer or physical therapist, you run the risk of wrapping the knee incorrectly. I would advise against it.

 

[FlyinRock]

You bring up a good point and one that damned few think of. Almost like using crutches wrong.
Another point is just because you wrap it doesn't make you bullet proof! Pro athletes can tell you all about it! But they also have the trainers and other pros to show them the correct way to wrap joints for protection..

 

[D_Rob]

Another point is just because you wrap it doesn't make you bullet proof!

Rocky is right again! I think our old friend Ricky is proof of that...

 

[Saluki]

Yeah I actually have not wrapped it once being advised by the Orthopedic for the first two surgeries. Thanks for clearing up wrapping it bc I was considering it for this new injury. I am concerned though that the Doc might say this is a re-occurring injury for my right knee. Is their a certain amount of times you can injure yourself before they are more likely to try and DQ you?

 

[CommodoreMid]

Good question- it would probably depend person to person and the extent of your injury and how you did it. I, for example, tore my ACL and severely sprained my MCL in high school. Surgery repaired the ACL, but they said they really couldn't do much for the MCL. As a result I have since twice sprained my MCL and once was even treated by Navy docs (fall on O-course during CORTRAMID), but I'm still here because though I was pretty swollen and couldn't bend the knee completely for a couple days, it did heal pretty much by itself. That's my case, yours may be completely different. Even in my short time in the Navy I've pretty much concluded that medical DQs and waivers are pretty much a crapshoot.