hypermobility ( recurring dislocation in knee) leading leading to compensatory injuries in both legs?

[ftfairy]

Hi
I was wondering if I could get more advice on my injuries. I'm 23 years old and have a history of hyperplasticity in both my knee joints leading to recurring dislocations from the age of 8.

At 11, I had surgery on both knees to help prevent further dislocations which was successful to a certain extent.

However, in Aug 2009 I incurred a pretty serious dislocation when someone fell on me at a gig. I tried to rest the knee (right) and keep it iced but 10 days later I got a compensatory injury by pulling my gluteal muscles on my left side. This then lead to muscle and ligament damage in my left foot as all my bodies weight was baring down on it.
I went to two GPs who confirmed that it was compensatory injuries and just pulled muscles but when I went to my local physio a few days later she didn't understand my issue with hypermobility or the subsequent compensatory injuries and made my GP refer me to a rheumatologist and refused to see me again.

It was only in January of this year that I managed to get listened to and get a referral to a sports and spinal clinic where my physio was amazing at explaining what had happened and gave me exercises to help fix the damage. ( The problem had gotten considerably worse on both legs as I had had no physiotherapy treatment for 4 months)
My patella (right) was still extremely weak from the dislocation and my gluteal muscles/thigh had completely diminished in size. Also leaving me still with weak gluteal muscles and muscle damage in my foot on my left side.

I have really improved from the doing the physio since January (2010) as my physio gave me treatment and exercises with a Medi-stem to get the neural connections to work with the Gluteal muscle again and to build up it's strength and form. She has given me stretching exercises to do with therma-band elastics which help enormously and to do gliding lunges (ahead and side-to-side) which also have shown huge benefits.

The problem is I'm finding it hard to have continuous progress as I'm still have weakness on my other side especially with my foot. I try to do at least 90 minutes of physio a day ( in three half-hour sessions) which shows benefit but if I have to leave the house or walk for more than 20mins, i feel like all my hard work gets undone.
I'm finding it had to treat one of the injuries without putting strain on the other so it's a bit of a catch-22.

I've recently moved away from Ireland to Edinburgh and my physio said if I keep doing the exercises I should be fine.

Is there any other exercises I could do to help quicken up the process or that'd give me continuous improvement without putting strain on another part of my body?
I'm also getting bouts of back and neck strain when it's particularly

Or are their any activities I could do that'd help? My physio suggested pilates but both my legs feel a lot better than they were but still quite weak. Would it be good for me to start pilates now or wait until they feel stronger?

Any advice on where to go from here would be greatly appreciated.

Similar Threads:

• Recurring knee injury
• back went out leading to severe butt pain
• KT Tape is launching in the UK.. the marketing leading Kinesio Therapy Tape
• Recurring patella dislocation in competitive gymnast - help

[pudding_bowl]

You need a rest day!, you can't expect to do 90 minutes of physio a day and get optimal results without giving the muscles a chance to rest every now and then.
Also do you have exercises for the foot? can you explain more what the 90 minutes a day comprises, maybe you are missing an exercise... though sounds like your physio was pretty good and you should be covered

[ftfairy]

Everyday I'd do exercises for my knee where I mainly try to strengthen the knee. In the morning I'd lie on my back and try to use my glut muscle by pressing down my knee and lifting my repeatedly lifting my leg in the air around 50 times. I then repeat that lying on both sides and on my stomach.

Another exercise I was given was gliding lunges using a plastic bag under my foot and repeating again around 50 times each on both legs with straight ahead gliding and side-to-side. I also use Therma-band (blue) around the leg of the chair to allow for a stretch in both legs when I extend my leg in a side-step motion.

For my foot, I was told to use a hardback book and a mineral bottle to create a see-saw mechanism to try to move my foot from side-to -side and forwards and backwards (pointing and flexing the foot).

I recently just bought a pedal exerciser this week as I was told cycling would be good and I'm finding that very helpful. I probably use it for around 40 minutes while watching t.v. each evening.

I am trying to rest it but I find if I have a physio-free day, both legs become really weak again the next day.
Thanks for replying

[pudding_bowl]

Yes, alot of your exercises there are for your hip and they aren't overly too hard... Perhaps you aren't ready for progressions but an excellent exercise for you would be to squat sqeezing a ball between your legs while you lean up against a wall... The purpose of this is to fire the VMO which is very important in stabilising the patella. I would also suggest you try standing on 1 leg with your eyes closed and don't let your other leg touch the ground for a full minute (do this between a door way and let your hands touch intermittantly for balance), if you ankle is wobbling all over the place you'll find it's strengthening for that minute and as you get better it will stabilise alot more and you'll be ready for further progressions.