Is there a doctor in the house?
I'll give this a shot (starting my Residency in Orthopaedic Surgery this year). I dont really post much so here's hoping i dont ramble too much.
As far as I can say Ainge's comment that this injury is a "bone spur" is confusing at best. Ofcourse I dont have KG's medical info, so I am going to have to go on some assumptions and the info we have gotten from the media to elaborate on this issue. As mentioned by some, bone spurs are usually not a "big" deal, but then again bone spurs usually cause problems in the foot. KG obviously has knee pain and a bone spur there, especially when inside the joint, can be much more serious. So what we can assume is that while doing an x-ray/mri they noticed spurs on KG's knee. But there are 2 BIG questions here:
1. Where are these spurs exactly? depending on where these spurs are on the knee we can tell if they are impinging on tendon, ligament, or cartilage. Dont be fooled guys some of these impingements can cause lasting damage, especially on cartilage. And there is no way to gain back knee cartilage.
2. Are these "bone spurs" really causing KG's knee pain? See a lot of people have bone spurs and as long as they are not impinging on something; they dont cause a problem. Just cause a x-ray/mri shows bone spurs, that does not mean that they are causing the problem. Quite frankly they can scope out KG's knee this summer (which i think they probably will) and find a huge meniscal tear that the MRI missed (which seeing KG limp around seems semi-likely). I have actually seen MRI's miss these tears more then once.
But lets assume that bone spurs are causing KG's woes, what then? Well he can have conservative treatment for the short term. I believe other members mentioned that these excess calcified lesions can impinge on tendon or muscle and cause pain via inflammation. And that anti-inflammatory medications can help alleviate the pain i.e NSAIDs (Ibuprofen), icing, cortisone shots (however when it comes to tendons, studies have shown that cortisone shots can cause serious damage over time...also ultra sound, which was mentioned earlier, is not an effective treatment). Ofcourse none of this will solve his problem and surgery during the offseason will be the best long term bet. How serious of a surgery will this be? Will that once again relies on question # 1. where is it? If the spur is small and at an easily accessible site then it can be a really minor surgery. However if it is placed inside the joint and has caused some damage then recovery time might be longer. There is no way to tell at this point but in all likely hood most such surgery's would have him still playing during the next season. But if there is serious damage to his cartilage or ligaments this injury CAN have lasting implications.
-Sorry for my long winded and confusing post...just hope it clarifies stuff a little.
