Lateral collateral ligament injury (knee)

[Treblesallround]

Does anyone know anything about this? Gd (13) injured her knee about 3 months ago. Followed advice from nurse to rest, elevate, ice etc but not really much better so now she has an appointment with a consultant in July.

She's a very active girl, and a very promising horse rider. Not being able to run around, and not riding is really getting her down (and her horse is getting fat!).

Does anyone know the long term likelihood of her knee fully recovering, or the likely timescale? I'm imagining that she'll need physio but is there anything we can do to speed up recovery?

These things do take time and it's frustrating. My DS has just recovered from a collateral ligament injury to his ankle and it took a full 6 weeks for him to be able to resume full activities, and that was apparently just a mild strain.

One thing we were told (by a consultant) was to keep the joint moving as much as possible (without of course exacerbating original injury - easier said than done, I know), as this improves blood flow and therefore speeds up the healing, so complete rest might not be the best thing.

Also, physio can do some ultrasound which will help blood flow etc.

Speaking as someone who has torn the cartilage in their knee, I'm assuming that she can weight bear, that there is no "catching" of the knee, or clicking etc - if so, it might be a cartilage injury not just ligament, which may require surgery.

If it's a ligament injury, it will heal eventually.

Thanks Katamongthepigeons. I guess we'll just have to be patient. Good to hear your DS has recovered.

There is some stuff about this on www.sportsorthopaedicspecialist.co.uk. I think knee LCLs don't heal we'll on their own though.... Good luck

A relative had a cruciate ligament knee injury -it was awful Surgery then physio and she has had to wear a knee support since