After the second fall, I went to the ER near my dorms, and the ER doctor assumed it was a deep muscle bruise around my knee and elbow, and to give it time to heal. Believing him, I went back to my dorms, stayed off my knee and elbow for a couple of days, and all was better, or so I thought.
About a year later, my knee started to hurt every now and then when I used the stairs at my university and at home. I just shrugged it off and assumed it was just my getting used to it. This kept on for a little while.
January of 2007, I moved back into the dorms, and was walking uphill a lot. All of a sudden, I got an intense pain in my knee. It got to the point where I couldn't walk anymore without pain. I saw two different general car doctors, both harped on me about my weight, told me it was weight related, just lose weight, and they handed me a diet phamplet. Nevermind the fact that I was losing weight, and my other knee was completely fine.
I lost about 40 more pounds, the pain in my knee got worse. Finally, I was fed up with those doctors, and transferred to a new doctor, after moving back to my hometown in 2008. Upon seeing the new doctor, I flat out told him that it was not weight related, I didn't want pain mangement. I just wanted my knee fixed. A few months later, after a few x rays, ct scans, he referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon.
The surgeon, upon seeing me on my first visit, immediately said I needed surgery. He was almost certain I had torn my meniscus in 2003. I had surgery this March. He found two bad tears in my meniscus, and apparently I've developed arthisis in my knee, somehow.
Now I'm going through physical therapy. I won't be able to do any sports or do anything high impact for about a year.... I was really looking forward to getting back into fencing. Oh wells, one more year won't hurt, I suppose.
All in all, I'm glad the surgeon found what was wrong and took me seriously enough. I'm still angry at the other doctors (not the one that referred me, he did listen to me finally!) that didn't listen to me. The surgeon was surprised that the others were so quick to shrug it off as being weight related, since my symptoms were pretty obvious.
Oh wells. That's my story for now. Sorry for it being so long! And sorry about spelling mistakes if any. I typed it all out on my phone waiting for my physical therapy appointment.