Let's Look Inside My Knee

I really spent way too much time labeling these photos, but alas, it's not like I have anything else to do. I mean, really, do I want to work on a research paper? I know these aren't the best quality. I scanned the color photos the doc printed out for me. So, buckle your seat belts and hop on the magic school bus =)
The band above is the plica. Plica can cause pain, but the doc says this wasn't big enough to be the sole source of my pain.

Although I didn't have any symptoms of torn menisci or collateral ligaments, it's always good to check them out while they're in there.

Here's the fat pad. Everyone has one, supposedly mine is a little inflamed, likely secondary to the tracking misalignment.
I can't remember if he said he removed this or not...

And here are the big bucks. If you look at the picture, you can see my knee cap rubs against the lateral (outside) of track and is a distance from the medial (inside) of the track. The rubbing of bone on bone contributes to the pain. To help the knee cap move in the proper tracking, the doc did a lateral release, which is better described in this post.

Lateral release will not solve all of my problems, but as long as I keep up my exercises, it should help. Only time will tell.