Need advice on medically withdrawing from college
 

My left knee is causing me a great deal of grief recently. I tried the three shot series of hylauronic acid, but I have not seen a decrease in swelling or in pain. The doctor said that the next step is to have arthoscopic knee surgery, but he said that is could wait till the end of the semester. If anyone has had this type of surgery before, how was it? Did it help for a significant amount of time or did you still have trouble after. Right now I go to one of the biggest schools in the country, and my knee is making it miserable to get around. What is the opinion on medically withdrawing? I don't want to look like I quit, I need some advice. Also if anyone had any remedies besides RICE, and advil for swelling it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Samantha

I think you probably need to be a bit more specific and share the precise diagnosis you have been given by your doctor so that people know things like:

exactly what have you been told is wrong with your knee;
what the orthopaedic surgeon is going to do when he performs this surgery;
What he expects the outcome to be;
What other treatment options have you been given, if any and any reasons why these might not be suitable.

If you can give more information then hopefully people can advise on treatment options and your college situation. Otherwise they might be guessing or suggesting things that wouldn't be relevant to your particular problem. You must be very fed up with this knee injury and its clearly causing you a huge amount of disruption.

Thank you, I will try to be more specific. My knee problems started a little bit over four years ago, where I kept having patellar subluxation. I tried physical therapy for a long time with bracing and taping the knee, but it wasn't getting better so the orthopedic surgeon performed a lateral release. After a great deal of physical therapy it seemed that my knee problems were behind me. However, in September I started having unexplained swelling in the knee, the doctor gave me a cortisone shot. This did not work, and at the beginning of January he told me that I had arthritis and cartilage damage in the knee and my only options were a three shot series of hylauronic acid or arthoscopic knee surgery. I just finished with the third shot and I am completely miserable now, walking to my classes is extremely difficult and I don't know if I should medically withdrawal or not. As for the outcome of the surgery he did not really tell me what it would be, he said that he was going to go in to the knee to see if they could clean it out and remove some cartilage damage.

You should consider the surgery since other options have failed so far. Get a timeline of recovery, etc from your doctor, then talk to your instructors about expectations and how they may be able to work with you during this time....then make a decision.