Parents Hyperextended knee?

[SMH]

My gymmies knee ‘went straight’, as she put it,while walking (yep walking) at gymnastics tonight. A coach told her she hyperextended it, wrapped it up and took her off floor and vault. She is icing/elevating it right now and says on a scale of 1–10 it’s a 5 for pain. Anyone else have experience with this as a parent? She doesn’t have practice again for 3 days so I told her no gymnastics/running/jumping until then, at the very least.

 

[sce]

Have her seen by a doctor.

 

[SMH]

Have her seen by a doctor.

Yes we plan on it.

 

[SMH]

I’m not looking for medical advise, just curious what experience others have had with this. My husband has horrible knees and has had two big knee surgeries, so we know how important knees are around here!

 

[Madden3]

My son hyper extended both knees (one much worse than the other) last fall while training floor. He had to be carried off the floor by the coach and could still barely walk the next day. Saw doctor, had x-rays, etc. No break or anything else visible. He was given strengthening exercises to do for after the pain went away. He tried a knee brace because he had had success with that when battling patellar tendonitis two years before, but the brace was not helpful this time. Doctor warned long rest period would be in order, and he was right. IIRC it was about one whole month out of gym entirely, and he was not able to train fully on legs for well over two months. It messed up his whole season, but it did get better.

One thing I learned from this experience is that conditioning had not been done correctly for several months prior due to staffing shortage. Just fyi.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Lots of experience and impossible to predict healing time. I would not do any type of running or impact for a week. Sometimes they heal quickly and sometimes not. (Could take a month or longer. One would think that since it was just walking it should heal quickly but impossible to know. Couple of things .
1. She needs to walk normal . Heal ball toe. Limping or shifting weight will absolutely cause irritation on the MCL and result in longer healing time.
2. Stationary bike couple times a day. I wood start that tomorrow for 10 min.
3. Ice for pain only . Use heat the rest of the time. Yea everyone will tell you to ice all the time. They are incorrect. New studies prove otherwise. Look up taking the I out of Rice.
4. PT right away.
5. See a doctor

 

[profmom]

Hoping she'll be lucky like my son. A few years ago, he hyperextended his knee I think two days before a meet or at most three but was right as rain by the time of the meet. But yes, this one does vary quite a lot.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Lots of experience and impossible to predict healing time. I would not do any type of running or impact for a week. Sometimes they heal quickly and sometimes not. (Could take a month or longer. One would think that since it was just walking it should heal quickly but impossible to know. Couple of things .
1. She needs to walk normal . Heal ball toe. Limping or shifting weight will absolutely cause irritation on the MCL and result in longer healing time.
2. Stationary bike couple times a day. I wood start that tomorrow for 10 min.
3. Ice for pain only . Use heat the rest of the time. Yea everyone will tell you to ice all the time. They are incorrect. New studies prove otherwise. Look up taking the I out of Rice.
4. PT right away.
5. See a doctor

Omg I should never respond this early ... would not wood. Lol.

 

[SMH]

Thanks all. We made an appointment with her doctor (pediatrician for now since she’s 7 and that’s the only doctor she has at this point) for Monday morning, and right now she’s resting. She says it hurts a little, and slightly more when walking down stairs? Meet season starts next weekend so we want to make sure she’s okay for that. I’m not 100% sure if she hyperextended it, or just stepped funny or what. I’m hoping the ‘going straight’ while walking is not a symptom of a bigger problem. I want to make sure to take care of it right away because I know knee problems can haunt kids for a long time.

Lots of experience and impossible to predict healing time. I would not do any type of running or impact for a week. Sometimes they heal quickly and sometimes not. (Could take a month or longer. One would think that since it was just walking it should heal quickly but impossible to know. Couple of things .
1. She needs to walk normal . Heal ball toe. Limping or shifting weight will absolutely cause irritation on the MCL and result in longer healing time.
2. Stationary bike couple times a day. I wood start that tomorrow for 10 min.
3. Ice for pain only . Use heat the rest of the time. Yea everyone will tell you to ice all the time. They are incorrect. New studies prove otherwise. Look up taking the I out of Rice.
4. PT right away.
5. See a doctor

She was walking funny on it and I did tell her that would make it worse. We don’t have a stationary bike, unfortunately.

Hoping she'll be lucky like my son. A few years ago, he hyperextended his knee I think two days before a meet or at most three but was right as rain by the time of the meet. But yes, this one does vary quite a lot.

We sure hope so! First meet is on Sat so we will see what happens and have our fingers crossed!

 

[Madden3]

My son hyperextended mislanding some kind of big (for him) tumbling skill. So probably much worse...sorry if I alarmed you, I saw "hyperextended" and freaked out because my son was so hurt from hyperextending and I could find hardly any info online about what he was experiencing. Listen to coach p that is all basically also what our ped said and he is excellent. Hope your dd feels better soon!

 

[SMH]

My son hyperextended mislanding some kind of big (for him) tumbling skill. So probably much worse...sorry if I alarmed you, I saw "hyperextended" and freaked out because my son was so hurt from hyperextending and I could find hardly any info online about what he was experiencing. Listen to coach p that is all basically also what our ped said and he is excellent. Hope your dd feels better soon!

No you did not alarm me, and if she’s just a little hurt, not taking care of it the next time could be the ‘big’ hurt so it’s good to have perspective on what could happen. Thank you! Hopefully this is only minor- her ‘gymnastics injuries’ so far have just been rips so this is all new.

 

[jenjean70]

My gymmies knee ‘went straight’, as she put it,while walking (yep walking) at gymnastics tonight. A coach told her she hyperextended it, wrapped it up and took her off floor and vault. She is icing/elevating it right now and says on a scale of 1–10 it’s a 5 for pain. Anyone else have experience with this as a parent? She doesn’t have practice again for 3 days so I told her no gymnastics/running/jumping until then, at the very least.

My middle son just did that in baseball running through home and trying to slow his run he hyper extended it and actually dislocated his knee cap- it popped out and right back in. He has been recovering for a couple of months now and working on strengthening that knee.

 

[Lunde]

Definitely get it assessed by the doctor to rule out major damage such as an ACL injury. Get a referral to to a sports physio as well to get exercises to strengthen the muscles.

I have always been hypermobile and was the person who could hyperextend my knee by just walking or going down steps - my ankles often went through 90 degrees stepping off a curb. What I now know is that I had undiagnosed Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. It was a shame that it was not diagnosed until adulthood as it caused a life-changing accident. My DD inherited EDS and have to give up gymnastics owing to disc problems in her spine

 

[SMH]

Went to the doctor this morning, who said it looked fine. Phew!

 

[John]

Good News.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Went to the doctor this morning, who said it looked fine. Phew!

I would stick to the 7 day plan for sure . I have seen kids hyperextend again making it way worse when they started tumbling within a few days. We live and learn

 

[SMH]

I would stick to the 7 day plan for sure . I have seen kids hyperextend again making it way worse when they started tumbling within a few days. We live and learn

For sure. The doctor also recommended KT tape if it gets sore, and to add some stability.

 

[rosiekat]

Yes, my son had a very mild hyperextension on a vault landing. It happened either on a Monday or Tuesday. We kept him out of school PE for the remainder of the week. He did go to gym on Thursday with the stipulation of no landings or running. Kept it wrapped most of the time, iced regularly (I'll have to check out that 'no I in RICE' thing referred to above), and ibuprofen. He was back to normal by Monday, so roughly a week for just a very mild hyperextension. I think the thing to remember is that when we stretch ligaments and tendons too far, they don't retighten - so it will be something to always be careful with.