Rare knee injury-NEED advice please

Hi everyone-I'm hoping someone can offer me some advice... Back in October I ran into a corner of my bed, injuring my knee. The main symptoms were weakness, and mainly feeling like my kneecap was popping out of place. I saw an ortho a week later who didn't think I did any damage and told me to give it some time. I went 2 months of not working out on it, even just standing on a straight leg made it start popping, the muscles around my knee were always sore and achy, etc... I saw another ortho about 1 month ago who thought it was likely a chondral defect (torn cartilage behind my kneecap)-he said it was likely the torn cartilage created a flap which is what my kneecap was catching on. I got an MRI which confirmed some kind of defect. Last Wed, I underwent arthroscopy chondroplasty and what he found shocked him. He found some fraying in the cartilage which he said in no way would be causing my symptoms. what he found was the cartilage that's connected to my knee has peeled away from my kneecap in the center, and only the outer edges are still attached-he was able to push on it with the probe. He said this is the 2nd time he has seen this happen. Obviously he couldn't fix the problem, and he ended up taking a biopsy of the cartilage in case I decide to undergo another surgery that requires growing and injecting the cartilage cells. He said my only 2 choices would be to 1. live with it, or 2. he could do a major surgery and inject cartilage cells into the space and hope that would make the cartilage attach itself to the kneecap again. I am devastated to say the least....
I have set an appt in 3 weeks with the partner of one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the country, but would love to see if anyone has ever even heard of this happening. I'm so crushed!! Thank you for ANY advice. : )      

He didn't mention total knee replacement-im only 31 so I don't think he wanted to resort to that so quick. The surgery is so experimental he really didn't know. That's why I'm seeking a 2nd opinion : ) I do have pain meds so no worries there. Thanks for the welcome!

Hi Kneeinjured, I too would like to welcome you to the chronic pain forum. I am glad that you found us but so sorry to read about what is going on with you.

I have not ever heard of what you have described is going on with your knee either. Like SE said, it sounds terribly painful. I am glad that you do have medication to take to help calm things down some what.

Please let us know how you are getting along and what the dr has to say when you get in to see him. Again, welcome aboard. Take care.

kneeinjured-

A friend at work had this and she went with the cartilage cell injections and she did have success with it. She is the only other person I have heard of with this though.

Take care,
Bill

Thanks everyone! Great to know someone else that had this problem. My ortho told me the procedure he wanted to do wasn't FDA approved for my issue but he wanted to try it. Ill let you know how the appt goes.