More on the knees and a bit of a ramble...
Short form, I have lateral patellar tracking syndrome in both knees. Both track to the outside of my legs, rather than in the patello-femoral groove. Of course, that assumes that I *have* a patello-femoral groove. When they took the x-rays, the sports physician commented that this was the closest to no groove at all that she had ever seen.
She also commented:
"really big muscles"
"really big bones"
"really, really loose joints"
"bad combination"
Which wasn't exactly accurate. Those big muscles were holding the kneecaps in place all these years, thanks.
But yeah, I have loose joints. I suspect that goalie types self-select for that, and we all try to keep as limber as possible. According to the sports physician, I was way off the charts.
Which I keep forgetting, and that leads to a lot of "what the heck are you doing" moments. The most recent was when I was sitting with my hand resting on my knee. Of course, my elbow was pointing straight over my knee away from my body, and my fingers were pointing towards my body (thumbs on the outside of the leg). For me a comfortable position. For some people, an "okay, you are just freaking me out" moment.
The legs still bend forward 10-15%, although I try to not do that, since I sub-lux my kneecaps sooner or later. The first joint of all my fingers happily bend in both directions, I can still get them to turn 90 degrees in, I can touch my thumbs to the insides of my wrists, and my toes have caused more than one massage therapist to wonder exactly what the heck happened to me.
I used to completely freak out the "I've had a year of Kung Fu, and I'm a stud" students, because they couldn't get me in a hold and have it *stay* there.
Downside? Yep--I partially dislocate a lot. And since the connective tissue looseness seems to be shared by my veins, I'm a really nasty draw. If I ever show up in Alwin's world, he might as well start the cut down immediately--unless they get someone who's a first class juvie needle sticker, they aren't going to get much but frustrated. It's in my file at Kaiser--when I go in for a 12 hr fasting whatever, the juvie butterfly comes out, and someone with lots of experience goes for the sample. Even then they may end up having to take it out of my wrist. (anyone turning green around the gills yet?)
On the whole, though, it's not something that's particularly obnoxious to me. If the blue fairy came up to me and told me that I could have "normal" joints, I'd turn her down. For me, this is what "normal" is.
Posted by lsefton at December 20, 2003 10:19 PM