KNEE INJURY MCL (MEDIAL COLLATERAL LIGAMENT)

Hi Vanessa

Oh dear! Are you in great pain? Clearly while you’re on advil and icing and elevation you probably should avoid going to yoga! 😉 You should avoid further risk to your knee until all inflammation is gone.

OK, so some questions:
Were you told whether this was a grade 1 or 2 tear or perhaps grade 3?
Were you asked to wear a brace? If not then the injury is probably on the non-serious side!

The knee although a simple hinge has a complex arrangements of ligaments. Your MCL also joins to your meniscus (unlike the lateral CL). At the moment you will want to avoid twisting movements.

When you swelling is gone then you will be exercising your knee and building the strength again. Just open and close your knee as the simple hinge (avoid twisting for now). Start to practice locking your knee (using your quadriceps muscles).

There is generally very good supply of blood to the MCL so it should heal well. But it does depend on the size of the tear (grade of the injury). It could take up to 2 months to heal it back to normal. So …

There are poses that you will want to avoid or modify when the time comes for yoga.

>>> 1 Eagle: Just crouch down hips back body up, twist the arms but NOT the legs.
>>> 2 Tree: See if you feel comfortable just putting sole of foot on lower leg or upper leg NOT at the knee. Your 100% healthy leg could do the regular tree or you can maintain symmetry and do the same thing on both sides. Obviously NO toe stand.
>>> 3 Fixed Firm: May initially be difficult. It depends on the tear and the healing. It may actually feel comfortable because Supta creates some space on the inside of your knee. So don’t be concerned at this stage if you have to skip for a while. The modification is simple and very restorative: Sit on your heels with knees and feet together. Just sit! Feet face down with lower legs straight and untwisted.

The above are the obvious ones.

OK I am on my way out the door so I will have to continue later with the rest.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Vanessa

OK! Grade 1. I believe that with appropriate care (and pose modification) until your MCL is healed, you should return to a normal hot yoga practice! Yay

When you get back in the hot room, if you have any questions, come back and together we can work it out! Just continue building on strength and ease back into your twisting poses as indicated so that your healing stays on track.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

I have not been doing Bikram for quite some time due to old knee injuries that cropped up. I finally gave in and had knee surgery back in May. Had part of MCL removed, there was quite a bit of scar tissue as well that had built up. I have recovered fairly well, but still have pain when I walk up and down stairs. I’m wondering if I can/could/should start doing bikram again.

Oh well, here’s another issue, since we’re talking about medical stuff. My cardiologist suggested I not do hot yoga. Wonder if I should ignore her advice.

Wow, it’s great to be remembered!

I’ll try and answer your questions. Currently, the majority of my excerice is walking. I have regained nearly all, if not all, range of motion, in fact my knee is more flexible now than before the surgery. I no longer take any pain meds. I do get massages and they do seem to help. I have not been doing any kind of yoga, although I have considered it. I plan to start excercising on an exercise bike hopefully today.

As I recall the discussion with my doc she said that the heat was probably not good for me due to my blood pressure, it didn’t have anything to do with my heart health. I get regular check ups and periodic EKGs, stress tests, and nuclear stress tests. My heart is in very good condition. the suregery I had was to correct a leaky valve and not weakness or blockage of the heart. Forgive me if the following is too much detail. A few years prior to my surgery at a regular check up my general practitioner said I had a heart murmur, had never been told that in my entire life, but the murmur was not significant and not to worry about. So, a few years later, I spent several months feeling lousy, flu like sypmtoms and genral lethergy. Eventaully it was discovered that I had a blood infection that was severe (nearly died) endocarditist (forgive my spelling)and that increased the severity of my mitral valve prolapse problem. I told the heart surgeon that I wanted the valve repaired and not replace if possible. So, I didn’t get a replacement valve but I’m guessing it was some sort of seal or something that causes the valve to seal properly, which solved the problem. Anyway, it took several months to heal from the surgery and the infection. I had to take some very, very strong antibiotics and have some residual kidney issues, but not severe. As mentioned in another thread there are some other residual issues.

Anyway, thanks for asking and I hope I haven’t put everyone to sleep reading this.