Joe A Shaw PA-C - 6/1/2010

Question
fall, severe swelling and pain. er then orth, drained knee,did arthroscopic surgery to clean out knee, another fall, conclusion ruptured quad surgery required, to another ortho for second opinion, ruptured quad, but was prob from the first fall, now quad has retracted, surgery scheduled later due to swelling, my concern is the swelling is not going down,following RICE, the pain is horrific, there has to be something else going on here, leg and ankle also swollen, could it be compartment sydrome any ideas? so afraid they are missing something

Answer
Linda,
Quadricep ruptures can be very painful and can cause swelling. I doubt it is compartment syndrome as that progressively gets worse fairly quick. Surgery is about the only thing that could possibly help. That leg,knee etc will never be 100% but hopefully it will improve.