Plica Syndrome

Plica syndrome happens when one of the little folds of tissue inside your knee called the synovial plica gets irritated, thick, and swollen from being used too much. Everyone has plicae because they’re leftover tissue from when your knee was developing, but they usually don’t cause problems until something triggers them. Things like running, squatting, climbing stairs, or any activity where you bend your knee over and over can make that tissue start rubbing against the bone in your knee. When it gets irritated, it can cause pain in the front or inner part of your knee, catching or locking, swelling, and a popping or clicking feeling whenever you bend or straighten your leg. Some people even feel like something is “getting stuck” inside the knee. That’s exactly what happened to me when I was running a lot my freshman year of high school. I didn’t know what it was at the time I just kept pushing through the pain, thinking it would go away. Instead, the pain got worse, and by junior year the swelling, catching, and clicking wouldn’t stop. Once I finally got checked out, they explained that my medial plica was rubbing over my femur and getting more irritated every time I ran. I started with six months of physical therapy to calm the inflammation and fix how my knee moved, and we tried everything strengthening, stretching, and working on my hip and quad muscles but it didn’t solve the problem. After that, I did cortisone shots for about three months, which helped for a short time but always wore off. Because the plica was still swollen and getting caught when I moved, surgery became my last option. I finally had the surgery my senior year around September, and that’s what actually helped. After years of pain, popping, catching, and swelling that all started with overuse and ignoring the early signs, removing the irritated plica was what finally fixed it.