Honestly don’t know how you can make the first statement if the second statement is true.
You’d rather wait to see the doctor after you fall and severely injure yourself? How much sense does that make???
If your child or someone else you love was experiencing these issues, would you honestly tell them to hold off seeing a doctor?
This is all I need to read:
" Boiling it down, my main concern is the buckling on stairs when it happens. Since it’s an out of the blue thing, I’m not always prepared for it. Last time at my mom’s I almost fell. That’s a wee bit scary."
If this has happened more than once, think about what could be the result of an actual fall happening. Is that worth seeing a doc?
You sound like you have health issues that combined, present challenges. Instead of letting them stack odds against you, why not be proactive and try to remedy those you can? Could your brain tumor be affecting balance - especially when going down stairs? PT can help you with balance issues as well.
What is your preferred motion activity? Walking? Biking? Strength training? Is there a reason you can’t keep this into play when you are at your moms??
Pick a doc and go. Primary or an ortho. Not sure a walk-in gets the personalization you need.
Mine occasionally buckles. No underlying cause ever found. Long story.
But get the right attention. Easy decision.
I’m not one to give advise about seeing a Dr as I hurt my knee back in August and I’m finally going to see an orthopedist on Monday. I did see my primary Dr who was fine with me taking a wait and see approach because it seemed to be getting better. It is now apparent that it isn’t getting better. I took the approach of starting with a PT about three weeks ago. I initially had some positive results but now the knee is worse and he gave me some names of orthopedic drs whose approach he likes. In my state I can self refer for physical therapy.
For many years I had a great PT who did a great job on my hip issues. Somei would get pain in my knee or the sole of my foot. He would work on my spine and the pain would go away. He believed that a lot of knee and foot pain originates from the spine.
I’m just mentioning that because until you see someone you won’t know what is causing your issues.
As someone who put off going to the doctor, I ended up having to go to the ER, in excruciating pain when I could no longer walk on that leg. Although it had been bothering my for weeks, it was no where near the excrutiating pain I felt then at that instant. The pain went from a 3 to a 10 in seconds. No doubt if I had been proactive that may not have happened. I was lucky when my leg gave out I was in the parking lot at work and was able to get help out to my car. (yes I could still drive, bad leg was left one). I am not sure what I would have done in a more public place with strangers. Go see an ortho doc!
Buckling is a huge concern.
I have a friend who broke her hip at age 37 when she had a fall. Also because of the location of the break, she could not get a hip replacement. She had a Richards screw and plate put in, with months of recovering at home, and much pain.
I’m 58 years old and have been running for 43 years. Total lifetime mileage is over 60,000. When I first began I suffered from chrondomalicia or “runners knee.” For several months I spent 10 minutes lifting a light weight (10 or 15 lbs) while in a sitting position. Over time this strengthened the ligaments or tendons that control how the kneecap tracks. I also am very careful to not allow the heels of running shoes to wear excessively before replacement. When your heels are worn it is like driving a car out of alignment. I have never had a knee injury since. If your kneecap moves in the correct groove and you don’t already have a cartlidge problem you can avoid knee problems. I’m not a doctor but I have run around the world more than twice and regularly complete marathons and ultra marathons
Regarding you heel, can it be plantar fasciitis?
PF is different.
Sure, it’s possbile OP has something inherited. Or some have told of their emergency experiences. But OP needs to let a doctor weigh in, with her facts on the table. You can’t be concerned about the present and future and then let this go.
FYI https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/patellofemoral-pain-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20350792
There’s also a thread on this.
I hope you work it out. If you need so much support in your shoes while walking that, to me, points to a weakness. One thing you could try to help with that (while keeping your shoes - do you maybe need orthotics, too??) is the foot exercises I recommended. Or, and I hate recommending it because I hate doing it myself - yoga! I hope you feel a lot better soon. Don’t listen to the weight talk and let it get you down. It’s what people offer when they don’t know what the real problem is.
A lot of these suggestions can actually be very bad for certain knee problems- i.e. yoga, cycling and leg exercises. That’s why it’s so important to get the correct diagnosis.
The exercise bike is one recommendation for building quad strength. As is PT to focus on the right muscle/ligament group.
But at this point, I agree we’re a jumble of reactions, with zero idea what OP’s problem truly is.
The “tickle your ears” answer is to ignore losing weight (IF you are overweight.) Admittedly this sounds like this is more than a weight issue.
But excess weight does exasperate knee problems. But as many have suggested, get to an orthopedic pronto. There’s a lot of bad information on this thread.
Anti inflammatory foods and an inexpensive drug store light spandex knee sleeve will help.
Isometrics for strengthening are easy. While flat on your back on the floor simply straighten your leg and squeeze the knee as tight as possible and hold for the count if 10. Try with toe pointed away from yiu and also with toe pointed to ceiling. (Sometimes I also do this with my leg straight on a footstool)
Google lateral knee strengthening exercises and knee strengthening with an exercise band.
There is another one where yiu are seared off the edge of your chair and yiu squeeze a kids big ball between knees and hold. Try it to see it feet and ankles should be pointed in or out. Yiu want to work the muscle on the inside above your knee.
The issue is…some of this advice is probably terrific for certain knee issues. This poster doesn’t KNOW what her knee issues are. For example…someone here suggested squats…and weights. For MY knee issue, I was specifically told NOT ever to do squats, and certainly not with weights. But that’s MY knee issue, and I went to an ortho to find out what was what.
We had a friend who recently had two knee replacements. Her BMI was also in the overweight but not obese category. Her doctor flatly refused to do any surgery (which she needed) until she lost 25 pound. It took more than a few months but she did it.
@yucca10 The heel pain probably is PF, but that’s totally different than the knee issues. I can work around the heel pain. I am on my feet a lot via the farm, working at school, and our activities so such things happen as one ages - at least among my peers. I haven’t considered that to be abnormal.
@mamom What happened to you is the same as what happened to my sister. She told me she’d had on and off basic pain for a little bit, but then on one Fed Ex delivery something just snapped in her knee. That is what I’m hoping is not genetic.
@abasket This shouldn’t be at all affected by the BT. My balance isn’t ever off. At this point walking is my main form of exercise and I’m not really ever going to be able to do much more than that. The results of my breathing issues seem to boil down to radiation affecting the control center of the brain - deemed that way due to process of elimination. Nothing is wrong with my heart or lungs. I’m not quite sure how the calcium score of 175 fits in. I need to ask at my next appt. Otherwise, my pulse speeds up quickly doing pretty much anything and it slows down quite a bit when I’m not active. When it speeds up > 120 then I have the breathing issues. Most folks do at that point, but it takes more for most folks to reach that - esp active folks. When I’m still for too long it slows into the mid 50s, lower if I stay inactive for more than a day or two. That gets me feeling awful all over and super cold at any temperature with no amount of clothing warming my body up. It’s all easy to counteract. Stay up and active, but no marathons or heavy activity. The official advice from the cardiologist is to keep doing what I’ve been doing because it’s worked well for my body.
At my mom’s… she’s gotten old enough or cancer affected enough that she gets scared when I head out for a walk. It’s always “too cold, too hot, too wet, too dangerous, etc.” It’s frustrating for me, but I’ve decided it’s not going to kill me and stresses her out too much. At home I get a minimum of 5 miles walking in per day - spread throughout the day doing chores, teaching, shopping or whatever. If nothing else, we have a 1 1/4 mile trail I walk - up to 4 times during the day if needed. When we travel for ourselves we hike. We take the stairs in hotels instead of the elevator. We walk miles of beaches or trails. At mom’s I can’t even park at the end of the parking lot or walk all the aisles in the store when we go shopping.
Today was a good day where nothing in the knee felt wrong - at least up to this point. I’m trying to be careful with turns. I can’t be still though. Mentally I’ve long past reached my quota with dr appts. Anything I can do by myself is preferable. When this becomes constant or a tear really does happen that will probably tip the mental scale, but I’m inclined to try targeted exercises to see if that helps.
Meanwhile I need to go close in chickens and will pick up another mile of activity. It sure gets dark quickly this time of year!
To all who are certain my weight is the issue, one comment the cardiologist made to me was, “You could probably lose a few pounds, but I definitely don’t see you as having a weight problem.” Personally, I’m sticking with what he says. Not every body is designed to be a stick figure. He also doesn’t feel I’m inactive.
For those recommending specific knee exercises - even with some description - How many? How often? For what duration? Holding your leg/foot/knee at what angle?
Point being, THESE are the individually tailored directions you will get from a medical professional. Based on your health history and ALL factors combined.
Wish you the best @Creekland and hope that your knee problem is passing or easily healed. But honestly, if you are bothered enough to post about the issues and at least initially make the issues sound potentially problematic (giving out, painful, etc.), don’t let this go too long if it continues.
And if you are walking miles a day several times a week as you indicate (I’m not talking just walking to get around in daily life - at work, around the house, to get the mail) that that is another sign - because your legs should be fairly strong from all that walking - that you need some intervention.
PF can also be helped by PT, you don’t have to live with it. Generally, the longer you ignore the problem, the harder it is to fix. I think you should go to a good PT and get a set of targeted exercises. My husband hates going to doctors and basically assumes he has to live with whatever pain happens in his muscles or joints, but when I made him go to a PT and do the exercises his foot pain (which was not too bad but annoying enough when he couldn’t walk as fast as I like to) eventually went away.
@Creekland Good luck to you! Please be careful on stairs. When my knee issues first started, we had a couple of new handrails installed. I have adjusted my habits to always have at least one hand with a death grip on the rail. I’ve had one knee replacement earlier this year and am putting off dealing with the other until after my DD’s wedding next year. Some days are good, and others not so much. I just never know when I’m going to get a jolt of pain.