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So I had an mtb crash about 5 weeks ago where my knee had a very significant coming together with my dropper lever (actually snapped the lever off at its pivot) and it hurt a bit for a few days / was swollen, but it went down and thought all was recovering well. I was back cycling to work / playing hockey etc.
2 weeks after the crash I did some loft insulation where I must have knelt on my knee a bit - overnight it blew up and got very painful. A day after that I went to a & e and was diagnosed with knee bursitis and cellulitis. A week in hospital on 4 and 6 hourly drips for iv antibiotics ensued!
Anyway - I’m now 2 weeks post exiting hospital and can now walk fine / stand up still fine without any swelling, but can’t bend my knee as much as Inused to - and it’s still a tiny bit bigger than it used to be / has some more healing to do. Got a final checkup at the hospital today which I think will hem fully discharge me for this injury!
What have people’s experiences been with recovery from such an injury and how quickly have you been back on a bike? I’m thinking I’ll probably pay to go and see a physio if necessary but just seeing what people’s experiences have been.
I did set up my racer yesterday on the turbo and had an exploratory 30 seconds spinning the pedals with minimal resistance and it felt ok. Got enough flexibility for that but want to see the doctor for advice before doing anything meaningful.
I haven't had it in my knee, but I've had it in both elbows (at different times) - luckily me! In my case, one resulted in a fairly nasty surgery and 10 days in hospital - the other sounds more like your knee, in that it was a period in hospital, lots of IV drips, but no invasive surgery.
I think you underestimate how serious this condition is - a week in hospital on regular IV means you had a significant infection - the movement in the knee is one thing, the impact of having been so ill with an infection is quite another - I would lay off for at least another 4 weeks - I'm no doctor but having been there myself I would say you need to tread very carefully…...
Good luck!
Maybe I am underestimating it - another 4 weeks will kill me! Argh, just sitting eating myself senseless at the moment which must be going wonders for my fitness.
Will definitely quiz the doctor today on what I should / shouldn’t do and when.
Your elbows sound horrendous, hope you’re all clear of that now.
Yeah, it was pretty bad at the time - the first time was while I was away studying in the USA about 25 years ago - was v scary - although that was the one with no surgery….about 5 yrs later, I recognised the same symptoms in the other elbow - it blew up to the size of a tennis ball within an hour or two of starting to go "sore" - infection tracked down my arm into my fingers soon after that and the doc who saw me said I was only hours away from my arm coming off!!!! - was in surgery within an hour or so of being seen. All basically caused by an ingrowing hair would you believe! Amazing how ill you can get with such a small thing!
Anyway, all clear now although last time the doctors said that I should be vigilant in future years as I've clearly got some sort of susceptibility to it!!
That 2nd lot sounds nasty - and all from an ingrowing hair?! 🤢
The doctor said bursitis is like a woman - they never forget. So I may find it gets sore from time to time in the future, although it shouldn’t necessarily blow up like it did this time.
No swimming or baths until it’s fully healed but said to crack on with sport within reason.
I think any kind of running can wait another few weeks as I think that’ll hurt at the moment from the impact, but I’m going to have a gentle 20 Mum turbo session in a minute (if I can stand the boredom - I hope there’s something on tv to watch. Going to have barely any resistance and just smoothly pedal at a steady (but slow) cadence and see what occurs.
Jesus. Y'all's bursitis sounds awful. I had it in my elbow and was amazed and cheesed at how long it took to heal. In retrospect it was trivial in comparison to yours but I still had a lump after 3.5 months.
I had one on knee after a crash about 5-6 years a go. I left it for too long, and it swelled up huge ... and required a few nights in hospital to have an operation to have it drained ... and very painful!
Took about a month for the cavity to close. Had to have it packed every few days, so it wasn`t able to be stitched.
I had bursitis in my right knee after a road body interface at speed on my bike. I was taken to hospital mainly because of my facial injuries and even managed to ride home after they had stitched me back together. It wasn't until the next day that my knee swelled up to three times its normal size. It took well over five weeks, lots of antibiotics, daily draining and in the end surgery before I could even bend the knee. Apart from the scar across my knee cap where the doctor pulled out all the infected tissue I haven't had a problem with bursitis since.
Jesus, some of you boys have had it really bad! They talked about draining my knee but said that was a very worst case scenario and they really didn’t want to have to resort to that.
Guess that’s why they went so hard on the iv antibiotics for so long.
Think it was the Wednesday (went in on the Monday) when they resorted to adding Ben Pen on top of the other antibiotics which hadn’t improved things. That was the antibiotic that really turned things round.
On the Friday my knee started sleeping on its own and one of the nurses asked the doctor if she was allowed to squeeze it. He said yes and the seepage was a good thing. I’ve never seen so much gross stuff come out of a body part - so much puss!
How did the infection get in? Was there a cut or graze or something?
I did have a cut on my knee at the point of the accident which I thoroughly cleaned with water and then antiseptic cream. Maybe I didn’t clean it well enough - perhaps I need to revisit how I clean cuts.
However, it was an unusual cut where a chunk of flesh was missing and it took a while to scab over. It seemed well on its way to healing by the time the knee blew up.
According to the doctor yesterday bursitis and cellulitis basically go hand in hand though. Perhaps when I knelt in the knee the day before it blew up the bursitis didn’t like it and that caused some further fluid leakage inside my knee which set things off. Who knows?!