ObstACLes!

Let’s see!  One radiologist says no ACL tear, no meniscus tear and my MRI radiologist says ACL tear and medial meniscus tear!  These are technically two ends of the spectrum.  So, I thought I will consult another radiologist and see if I get another opinion.  My brother-in-law is a veterinary surgeon and when I mentioned these diagnoses to him, he said he knows someone and arranged for a meeting to show the MRI.  I uploaded my MRI files to our FTP site and had him download the MRI files to his laptop which he took to the radiologist and had a reading.  This time the reading was somewhere in the middle – possible ACL tear but inconclusive and same with the meniscus!  Oh, boy!  What to do now.  So, I go back to the first family friend who got a radiologist to read the MRI and told her about this diagnosis.  This person has already asked another radiologist to look at it (4^th reading) and he said he couldn’t see any tears!  This was getting to me at this point.  I wanted to get it right, tear or no tear didn’t matter at this point.  All this while, I still have little pain around the knee area – but cannot pinpoint where it came from.  Slight swelling still persistent. 

After several agonizing days regarding the surgery decision, I called up my ortho and asked for another appointment prior to scheduling for surgery.  I will be going on the 12^th (July) and will find out if I can get answers to my questions.  This time I want to ask him and see if he can perform diagnostic arthroscopy as well as fix the meniscus (if torn) at the same time before touching the ACL.  I am not sure if they can schedule an arthroscopic surgery and do an ACL surgery if ACL is torn.  Anyway, that’s the way I think I am going to go.  Another interesting event transpired yesterday (July 3).  My friend’s sister and her husband are doctors and were visiting my friend from Boston and they said they can read the MRI and see what’s going on.  Since my friend lives a few minutes from my home, I went there with the MRI CD and opened it up.  Even though they are not radiologists, they were also not too certain from the MRI if there was a tear.  One comment they made was that in my case clinical diagnosis is probably needed instead of an MRI.  In fact, one of them tried to check me out (remember the baseball practice with my leg by my ortho).  He was much gentler and did not find much of a movement indicating a full tear.  Since he is not an orthopaedic surgeon, he wasn’t 100% certain he could do a clinical diagnosis as a torn ACL.  Now, I am leaning more towards the possibility of my ACL being not torn afterall! 

Guess what, my brother in law called up and said he got another appointment with a different radiologist to see if they concur with any of these myriad of conclusions!  So, the saga continues.  In the meantime, I am hoping that the swelling will go down and may be the ortho will check me out one more time and do another clinical diagnoses prior to surgery (which seems to be certain – either diagnostic arthroscopy or arthroscopy to fix meniscus).  I guess I will wait till the 12^th before deciding for sure.