Knee swelling and pain with lateral movement and squatting

re willing.

Rice - rest, ice, compression, elevation.

Rest as much as you can - for awhile.

Ice as often as you can.  I use a Polar Care unit (on my 3rd one).  It circulates ice cold water through a wrap.  WONDERFUL111

Compression - get one with the patella out.

Elevate - whenever possible. 

Hard to say without more information. Did you mean "more" than 90 degrees - you said "less than"?  Fluid around the kneecap is just fluid in the joint throughout and not specific to the kneecap.  It just means your knee is not happy inside and the fluid is from inflammation from disease or injury.  A torn meniscus would produce pain upon acute flexion (more than 90 degrees) and the pain is normally located near the medial or lateral joint line). Side-ways pressure frequently means meniscus injury as well (torn cartilage in lay terms). . Injury to patella(kneecap) will hurt in the vicinity of the patella and be more painful going up or down stairs.  

A meniscal tear may need surgery because the tear may eat up the joint in time.  Of course removing a meniscus results in more area and increased contact pressure on the joint surfaces themselves so they wear out a bit faster any (so take your pick).  If you get over it in reasonable amount of time you might avoid additonal medical costs, but if you  want to figure this out correctley you'd need to see an orthopedic surgeon.  Not having medical insurance is a big gamble.

Stave

The situation you are facing is very unpredictable. You could have anything from a badly bruised soft tissue or bones to the extreme of a chipped or broken bone. I would think dislocation or a major break would be at the bottom of the list. The problem is, you have leg this go and problems compound. Calcium build up, arthritis etc cane Dec e like and just make the injury more difficult. At some point.........the sooner the better........you are going to have to get xrays or mri to have a proper diagnosis and treatment plan. Where are you located. With that info maybe someone on here knows your health care operation and can offer some advice based on that info. In the meantime about all you can do is ice and rest with the possibility of using something like bio freeze t o reduce pain

Right ... it is hard to say without more info, particularily an MRI.  But, given that he injured it playing basketball, and from what little description he's given, the most likely culprit is a torn meniscus.  In the U.S. they get operated on pretty quickly; in the UK they get on a wait list that may take a year or so to get done.  Interestingly, during that year a lot of these get better and the long term results of waiting are equal to early intervention.  But ... sometimes during that year the joint can get pretty well eaten up so if that happens it would have been better to get surgery earlier than later.  So ... what do you do?  Nobody knows.  My recommendations are that if it is getting better I'd just watch it ... if it's not then best to get fixed.  In my own case I let my torn meniscus ride for five years and one day it started acting up and I got it fixed and the joint was otherwise pristine.  In other cases I've seen (having been a joint surgeon for 40 years) waiting six months is too long.