i'm sorry to hear about your fall. that's certainly never pleasant! it's impossible to tell what's going on without performing a physical examination but i'm going to take a stab at this. i'm thinking you may have irritated or injured the patellar tendon where it attaches to the tibial tuberosity. let me explain that in laymen's terms. the patella of course is the kneecap. it is attached to the lower leg by a tendon. if you bend your knee and feel the very top of your shin bone you'll notice a bony bump. this is the tibial tuberosity (the 'tibia' being the medical term for your shin bone). the patellar ligament attaches to the tibial tuberosity. if you fell onto that area of your knee you very likely may have injured the tendon. the bad news is this can take a long (long) time to heal. tendons have poor blood circulation which means the tissue doesn't get as much oxygen as say muscle tissue does. and since oxygen is crucial to tissue repair it takes tendons and ligaments much longer to heal than other body tissues. on the plus side it probably will heal eventually. assuming you did in fact injure the patellar tendon your best course of action is to avoid doing anything else to irritate it. that means no kneeling no activities that cause lots of bending (such as playing soccer) and things like that. rest will help your leg heal. if you're not allergic to them anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen can help the pain. if the pain persists you can always get re-checked to see if this is indeed a soft tissue injury. wishing you well!
tripped & fell. experienced excruciating knee pain when attempted to kneel 8 days later. xrays were normal. help!