Have you ever sprained your knee and neglected to have it examined? Steve explains the importance of having an MRI after suffering severe ligament damage from a ski accident.

I'm Steve, from Piscataway, New Jersey.



About a year and a couple months ago, I injured my knee skiing. I figured I had just sprained it a little bit. I wore a brace; took care of it for a couple of months, and then I just resumed life as usual; playing golf six months after I injured it skiing and I blew it out completely. I knew immediately it was terrible. I was bent over in pain and agony. I actually - I managed to drive myself home, which was about a ten-minute drive, and then I sat on the couch and I could barely move my leg for the rest of the day.



I set up an appointment, got the MRI the following week, and it showed I had a torn ACL. My medial meniscus was torn up, and there was a slight tear in my lateral meniscus.



I got surgery done; immediately started a week or so after with the physical therapy. I've been going twice a week ever since. And it was startling how much muscle I lost just from the two weeks of atrophy.



I'm going to continue physical therapy until I can get both my legs pretty much equal quality.



You have to go right away and get the MRI. The problem I had was because I - I injured it originally and thought it was just sprained myself. So when I used it for the six months following before I blew it out completely, I was damaging the meniscus everyday. If I'd have got it checked out, if I'd got that MRI immediately, I would have had a lot less damage to my meniscus and I would have no problems in the future, whereas now I have no medial meniscus because they had to remove it, and I'm probably going to get arthritis in the future. So you really have to go get it checked out as soon as it happens.