Popping Knee, Painful, Stiffness After Sitting Too Long, Hip Pain. Should Arthroscopy Be Done?

Question: Four months ago, I was sitting on a friend's couch with my leg under me. I turned to look at something and my knee went "pop" really loud with horrible pain for about 20 minutes. I couldn't walk on it real well that day. After that it only hurt going up and down stairs. I'm military so I went to this school for 2 months and it got worse - pain all the time, popping and snapping after my knee would lock up, stiffness if I sat too long and pain up and down stairs. Got back and went to the doctor. The PA told me after examining my knee he felt it was patellar tendonitis. Gave me naproxen and set up a physical therapy referral. Had me get a Xray and said that if it did get worse, come back and we'd get a MRI. Well it got worse. I had a MRI done and waiting the results and physical therapy tomorrow but it hurts all the time, I started to have hip pain at the end of July and now my thigh is really tight, probably overcompensating. I can't straighten my leg out and if I do it hurts like hell. I can't really support even my own weight on it. Talked to a couple people today and they said it looks a little swollen now.

Question is - if the MRI comes back negative, should they do an arthroscopy? I know something is wrong and it's not just tendonitis. It didn't start hurting because of overuse. It started after the loud pop followed by pain. I'm just worried that if it comes back negative, they won't try anything else.

If it is negative, should I be referred to ortho or get a second opinion? I've talked to other people who had a similar issue and had negative MRI and it took them a couple years to figure it out. I'm in the military so sometimes we don't usually have the best doctors or its a PA looking at us.

I went to physical therapy and they did not give me a copy of my MRI results. The physical therapist said that the results came back showing no tears but she said that sometimes MRIs can miss things. She showed me some exercises to do because she said my knee and my thigh muscles are really weak. But she said there's something that's causing the pain. I have an appointment with the PA on Thursday and wonder if I should ask for a referral to orthopedics when I talk to him.

I just wonder if there isn't something. I know my body and this is not something to ignore. I would think even inflammation would show up and she didn't say anything about that. Also with my knee locking sometimes, does that mean something is getting stuck in the knee cap? I just wonder if I don't need an orthopedic surgeon to go in and look around because it just doesn't feel right to me. I know that yes my muscles are weak after not doing any exercise for a month but when this originally started, it was due to a "pop" and I felt something tear.

At my appointment with the PA Thursday, I was going to ask for a referral to an orthopedician and for my MRI results because the physical therapist saying it came back showing "no tears" didn't seem right. I will reply again Thursday after my appointment at the clinic.

It's going to be next week before I can get the images from the MRI. When I went back to the PA today, he said he examined the MRI and there were no tears. So he gave me a stronger anti-inflammatory drug and said I need to continue the physical therapy exercises but gave me a profile for no running, jumping, marching unless mission required and that I can continue physical therapy while deployed, which looks to be mid-October. The only thing they gave me at the hospital today was the comments from the radiologist that there were no tears found. Next week I'll reply with the images. The PA said it seems like Patellar Femoral Syndrome but I don't know.

I'm in Kansas, in the U.S. I am in the military. I'm not sure about how we can see a civilian doctor off base and have Tri-Care (our insurance) cover it. I'm not sure if my provider- the PA - would have to put in a referral or not. It's going to take until next week to get the MRI because of the Labor Day 4 day.

I have the MRI and Xray images from a couple weeks ago. I uploaded the four MRI images that were on the CD. They physical therapy exercises have helped slightly but it still hurts up stairs and long distance walking and still pops and cracks.

All that's on the CD is four images and when I tried to upload the viewer, it said it had to be a JPEG on here. I'm not exactly sure what I need to send then. When I open the CD it lists the following folders:

DICOM, Libraries, Preferences, Stack, Worklist and then has "AUTORUN" and a program called "MediaViewLauncher" that opens up two Xray photos and four MRI photos.

When I open the DICOM folder it has 146 files in it that are DCM files. If I knew which ones needed to be sent that would be helpful. But everything I listed is on the CD.

Dear Doctor, Please check your email-box for the pics.