MCL tear of the knee: Injury, diagnosis, treatment

what is an MCL injury of the knee and what does it mean for you I'm dr. David Iyer orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist I provide education insight and commentary on all sorts of sports and exercise injury and injury treatments and injury prevention for athletes and active people probably much like yourself so the champ can say help me and perform your best one of the most common injuries in sports especially what we call contact and collision sports like football and soccer is an MCL injury of the knee this is a big thick ligament on what we call the medial side or the inside of the knee the side closest to the midline of the body as opposed to the outside of the lateral side big thick ligament on the outside of the knee it's very often injured in what we call a valgus stress where your ankle is toward the outside compared to your knee one way to do that would be another player hitting you on the outside of the knee forcing your knee inward and opening up the medial side or the inside of your knee you could also do it by planning your foot to change directions with side to side motion and injure that ligament as well it's very common now you can injure that ligament that MCL or the medial collateral ligament by itself or it can be a combined injury like a meniscus tear plus MCL injury or more commonly ACL injury plus MCL injury that spectrum or combination of injuries is sort of a different discussion a lot of times it's the other injury like the ACL injury that really dictates treatment what we're going to talk about here is an isolated MCL injury or an NCO injuries that occurs by itself so what that typically entails is non-surgical treatment that's good news right you almost never need surgery if you have an isolated MCL injury what is done to treat it is basic you put the athlete in a knee brace that lets you bend and straighten your knee flex and extend your knee but it prevents side to side stress on your knee that valgus stress on your knee to help that ligament heal you know how long it takes to get back really depends on how severe the injury is you'll hear the term grades 1 grades 2 and grade 3 that's based on physical exam how much the knee opens up when you test it and it's based on what it looks like on MRI generally what grade 1 means is that that ligament that MCL is just stretched out it's not completely torn grade 2 is usually some sort of partial tear of that ligament and then grade 3 will either be a complete tear of the ligament in the mid substance completely apart or it pulls off the bone on the femur the thigh bone or the tibia the shin bone the more the higher the grade essentially the worse the injury the longer it takes to get better so grade 1 in grade 2 or a grade one I should say takes about one to two weeks generally grade two maybe two to four weeks grade three can be up to four to six weeks there are some grade three injuries that occasionally need surgery so that's why if you suspect an MCL injury that's one of many good reasons to go see an orthopedic surgeon just to get a full diagnosis and get the right steps to treat it so that you can get back to sports and exercise quickly but there are a rare number of MCL injuries that need surgery and so that's important to know Plus if there's confirmed that it's a combined injury ACL MCL that kind of thing that gets to where very often we'll talk about surgery to treat you know that spectrum of injuries so another good reason to see an orthopedic surgeon okay have you suffered an MCL injury and how did you treat it how long were you out of sports or exercise I'd love to hear your experience so below this video in the comment section leave your experience describe how you got hurt how the doctor diagnosed it and treated it I love to read it and I bet people all over the world would love to hear your experience as well if you like these videos on sports and exercise injuries and surgeries I record a couple of these videos every week certainly one of these injury and surgery videos every week if you see these on Facebook terrific comment section comment section below if you want to share your experience but if you want them delivered directly to you go to my youtube page I have a channel dr. David Iyer click the subscribe button on the upper right corner of the page you'll get these injury and surgery videos delivered directly to you thank you so much for watching I hope this video on MCL injuries was helpful I look forward to seeing you right here next time

Channel: Dr. David Geier

Views: 226,218

Keywords: sports medicine, orthopaedic surgery, orthopedic surgery, orthopedics, sports injury, knee surgery, knee injury, knee surgeon, sports doctor, sports surgeon, MCL injury, medial collateral ligament, MCL, knee brace, knee pain, hurt my knee, knee hurts

Id: 837GJnelTyQ

Length: 4min 59sec (299 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 20 2017