Hello and Welcome to osteochondral defect Forums

[ocdnetadmin]

Hello and welcome to OsteochondralDefect.net Forums, a community for patients with osteochondral defect lesions (OCD) in the ankle, knee, and other places. Please stay a while and share your experiences with OCD lesions with others.

This forum is a supportive environment where individuals can come together, find answers, and help each other recover.

Besides maintaining the forum, I will also post articles about new research and techniques for treating OCD lesions. Please feel free to recommend any articles you think worthy of being on the front page of ocd.net by posting them in the Recommended Articles section.

[airjaw]

Hello, I'm the forum creator/admin and here is a little about me:

I have been an OCD sufferer since April ‘06. I suffered a severe ankle sprain when I landed on someone’s foot during basketball. I did not know how serious the injury was until a year later when I had an MRI. MRI showed two large lesions on both medial and lateral talus bone.

I’ve gone to a few doctors and done quite a bit of research. Information about this injury is hard to find and at times can be outdated or plain inaccurate. I also created my own forum because the original forum I was at wouldn’t let me post articles, links, or even mention doctors. It was overly restrictive and I couldn’t talk freely about this devastating injury with others as I liked.

If you did not know already, ocd lesions are a serious type of injury. In many cases the lesion does not heal by itself, as cartilage does not have self-regenerative properties. If you have damaged or lost cartilage, it simply won’t grow back even with all the time and rest in the world. We have to band together and discuss options for working through this together. Seek out others for advice in the forum and share your personal story. It’ll make you feel better, I’m sure of it.

[kimber]

Airjaw,

Thanks for starting this!  I am 7 months post OATS and had drilling 10 months prior to that and am now struggling with an achilles tendon that is not cooperating after 15 months of immobility ... might now be looking at Achilles Tendon Lengthening Surgery.

What I can say though is that aside from my achilles issues the pain I was experiencing in my ankle is gone, including those stabbing pains, so there is hope.

I'll be happy to see some of the other OATS folks here ... we always wanted to share pictures, etc. of our surgery and hopefully this will be the place to do it.  (never thought we'd all be so excited to share pictures of hardware in our ankles!)

Thanks
Kim

[heinselrunner]

Hello,

I had microfracture surgery on my R ankle in June 2007.  Whereas I'm able to run distances again, the joint still isn't right, and my lesion has grown to 8mm x 8mm.  Don't know what the future holds, but I'm glad to know others have been there, and are recovering from OATS, etc.   Nobody else understands how debilitating these injuries are, and how hard you have to work to get insurance to approve any kind of treatment.

[krisj]

Hey guys, it's me, Kris.

My OATS surgery was in Sept. 2008 and I had previous drilling on my OCD's Oct. 2006. I'm  5+ mos out and having some issues. I only had 1 of my OCD's have an OATS procedure, the second was drilled and microfractured a second time. I'm too early to say this is a success.

I see my dr. this month and can't wait. I have much to say to him. 

[Liz526]

I think this is great!!  Thank you so much for starting this. I'm 30 years old and extremely active.    I've been strugling with an OCD lesion to my right ankle since 2004.  After years of failed conservative treatment, I am now having the oats procedure done in two weeks.  My lesion is 18 x 9 mm and it is anteromedial.  My os will be taking two plugs from my knee.  I'm nervous!  I'll keep you all posted.

[crocop]

Hello everybody, great to see this! I had MF 3 years ago and finally have a good way of dealing with my ankle and I am always on the look out for any medical advances. Look forward to sharing with everyone

[SkaterDad]

Hello Everyone and thank you for starting this forum.
My son was diagnosed with OCD in 02/2006.  Put in cast for 6 weeks - nothing but anguish
OCD Drilling 04/2006 - nothing but unbelievable anguish
Cut Profound of Tibia for access to Talus and had 9mm allograph plug in 04/2007.  Went back to skating 10/2007. Placed 10th in US Figure Skating Championships last January in Cleveland - Priceless
Thank God each and every day for this second opportunity and pray that it lasts for awhile.

http://www.cs.kent.edu/~walker/photos/09-01-18_USNationals/09-01-19b-NDC/group3/images/page31.html

Daniel will be seeing his OS in a few weeks for a 2 year follow up.
Good Luck to everyone and your all in our prayers
Dennis

[bumankle]

Hi All,

Its bumankle, thanks for starting this! The waiting room- so fitting. That's where I am - I am waiting to hear back from my insurance appeal for coverage for the OATS procedure. I have a posterior medial defect on the left talus. Arthroscopic debridement July 06...then drilling Dec 07. Im ready..well as much as you can be..to have the OATS surgery and begin my recovery.

[mrsbadfeet]

Hello to everyone,
My name is Diane, I Have had ankle problems for as long as I remember. When I was about 10 I used to complain about my ankles "locking" and not being able to move them. I have had the clicking as long as I can remember. From what I can remember back then I was x-rayed and the talus bones both had a nipple like protrusion on them. (yes BOTH)  They said it was a birth defect. They said it needed to be taken care of or it would haunt me. I remember the doc trying to express the seriousness of it all to my mom.  It was decided there was no to cash to do this and I should deal with it as I always had. I used to stop and grab my foot and pull it out and replace it so I could move it.
Well 30 years later I WAS  a proffessional chef and had alot of pain. It was something I just figured anyone had after a 16 hour day on their feet.  But then the right leg got really bad. It started swelling huge every night.   So I started to go to the doctor. I think in 2006 I went every 2 weeks. I was told I was "fine honey, just get some inserts" and various other insulting things until after my 10th or so visit I made the poor doc mad by showing up AGAIN to insist something was wrong. (I did not remember the past visit when I was a kid, just that I had to always pull my ankle out) Well I made him so mad he sent me for a MRI. I thought it was weird that the MRI people tried to help me walk after they looked inside may ankles. They were very surprised I was going through life that way.
Results were lesions in both ankles. Left was larger in size 8x10 I think but it was only 1-2 mm deep. The right, was only 6x8 but was 4 deep.   Now he says I shouldn't be walking very much. Onto the specialists......
I was scoped and drilled on the right in Jan 07 and think it recovered ok at first and then got the left done in June 07. The left had issues from the start. For one the lesion was larger than the MRI showed and I personally feel it was doomed from the start. What happened was the  sides busted off and then I had a bunch of fragments i was mashing around in there. The doc was not very sympathetic when I said it was really painful and I thought there was something wrong.  She had me wait from August till Jan before she would MRI it.  In the process I swithced docs. The new one wanted to do the surgery
(OATS) immediatly I was there on a wednesday and he wanted me in on Fri.  I ended up waiting a few weeks.   I have had pretty good success with the oats on the left. I click really loud and I guess there is a flap he could cut out. I am not even sure if I want to do it. Not thrilled about more recoop. Other than that the screws just cause a bit of pain every now and then depending on the weather.
The right is once again a mess. I am not sure what the lesion size is grown to but the ammount of pain is increasing daily. This was an especially hard weekend for me. At times I considered the crutches. Not very good sleep either.
I have had a bunch of insurance issues with the oats and will post somewhere else on this site for those. I hope to maybe walk with less pain someday in my life.
Mrs Badfeet

[docs73]

hi all.
thanks for starting this forum.
i'm 35, had a bad snowboard fall in 2/08, had peroneal sheath reconstruction in12/08 and just had a 1 cm lateral talar ocd debrided and drilled 2 weeks ago.
took a while to find the ocd - 1st hard rather than spondy hence amenable to drilling.

mri after 4 weeks showed bone swelling but no definite lesion, but after 2 months in a cast after the tendon surgery i was still complaining of a lot of pain, so repeat mri 2 months ago finally showed the problem.

surgeon seems pretty confident that this will heal - said that the cartilage and a sliver of bone just lifted right off but that the underlying bone was hard rather than spongy hence amenable to drilling.

a quick question - my surgeon allowed me to fully weight bear straight away, and his only limitation now is no running or other high-impact sports for 3 months - can cycle, use x-trainer etc. is this everyone elses experience? i work in a hospital and some of the other orthopaedic surgeons seem to raise their eyebrows a bit when i say that hes happy for me to fully weight bear....

[airjaw]

hi docs, forum creator here, just wanted to say welcome!

Sorry to hear about your injury.. i have a roommate who goes snowboarding quite a bit.. I always tell him to be very careful.

It seems to be a common thread around here where the doctors miss the OCD first, then only catch it after we come back several months later still in pain.

As for the weight-bearing question.. doctors have different opinions on this and i've heard both. However, my doctor advised me not to weight-bear for a full 8-12 weeks. This seems to be the common route that most doctors take after microfracture or OATS. I know they definitely won't let you weight-bear after OATS , microfracture could be different depending on the circumstances. I'd be more conservative and not put any weight on it for a while if I were you. I know that I definitely COULD NOT put any weight on the first couple weeks.. my ankle was simply way too weak and swollen.

Goodluck and let us know how the recovery is going.

[Sportsman]

hello all
I am going to be a senior in the 09/10 school year.  i am a three sport athelite football, basketball and baseball.  i have ocd in the knee and i go in tm to talk to doctors about surgery.  i have had it for as long as i can remeber.  when i was 12 or so i went into the doctors all they said was that it was a growing pain and a pain it was.  then in april of 09 while playing baseball i made it worse. talked with they trainer at our school and she said that it was just my hamstring and i would be over it in a couple of weeks.  then when it didnt go a way she thought it was my minicus that was torn.  we into the doctors and had an mri to find out that i have odc in the knee.  so that puts me out of football for sure and maybe basketball.  im having surgery on july 1.
keep u posted.

[airjaw]

hey sportsman, welcome to the forums and sorry to hear about your knee.

What surgery are you getting?

[Sportsman]

Idk yet I go in on Monday to find out what is all going on and thanks