Do I have a knee injury or not?

When I was about 5 or 6 I tripped over a water pipe while running after a ball and did something to my right knee, but I never went to a real doctor for it, I just saw a family friend who was a chiropractor that had a good amount of sports medicine knowledge. He gave me stim then, and I guess everything was fine for a while, but when I started playing softball and other activities it started acting up on occasion. What happens is if I land on my knee wrong, or slip, or do something like that, I can hear and feel several quick pops on the underside of it, and it's pretty painful for a couple minutes, but I can just walk it off and it will be fine and I'll be able to go on with whatever activity I was doing like nothing had happened. This has been going on for almost ten years, and it happens primarily during softball seasons, maybe twice a summer or sometimes doing other random things like slipping on a piece of paper on the floor. However on Saturday, I was at a softball tournament and I ran from the infield to shallow left field to catch a pop up, and -not looking at the ground- after a step or two on the grass, my knee collapsed on me and I felt the usual popping and pain associated with it. I couldn't get up for a couple minutes, and my coaches came out to look at my knee and I told them it wasn't a big deal or anything because this happens to me on a regular basis and that I just need to walk it off and I'll be fine. So I did that. I walked around the infield and waited for the pain to go away and for my range of motion to come back (sorry, I forgot to mention it hurts to bend my knee right after it collapses, and it takes a couple rounds of straightening it and bending it before I can get up and walk). So then I finished that inning, and came out the rest of the game, not really understanding why, because I was feeling pretty much normal. There was just a little bit of soreness, but I could run perfectly well. I then played two more games with the same lingering pain around my knee, I think particularly on the sides underneath my knee. It was later Saturday night and Sunday morning that I started feeling a pain that didn't usually come with these incidents.



That was the background, and now here are the symptoms...I don't know what the ligament or tendon is that runs directly under the knee cap, but when I straighten my knee it doesn't necessarily hurt (it sort of does a little bit), but I can actually feel its presence if that makes any sense...I mean it almost feels like it's swelling up (even though I doubt it is) and it makes it increasingly hard for me to straighten the knee. Also when I bend my knee all the way, towards the bottom of my knee cap and towards the outside of my knee, I feel pain. It's not a sharp pain, but it especially hurts when I press down on this spot, which is kinda swollen--it's a lot squishier than the same spot on my other knee. I get the same feeling also towards the top of the knee cap and on the inside of my knee. I don't feel any pain at all when it's somewhere between closed to fully straightened and close to fully bent. I've also iced it 3 times over the past day and a half.



I don't know if this is a serious injury that will need a long recovery time, or if the ligaments or tendons or whatever are just a little out of whack for now. It only concerns me because it's much more pain and discomfort caused by something that I've gotten used to for years now.



Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!Do I have a knee injury or not?
i'm not a doctor or anything, i'm just a guy that does a lot of sports and i have some experience with knee pain. in my case, knee pain was result of not training the hamstrings enough, i trained quads a lot and not so much the hamstrings. balance is very important. also, stretch a lot and do various knee exercises like shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goPmWgp6f鈥?/a>

hope this helps