If your PT person approves, consider adding a water based exercise class to your routine. It is a low impact way to strengthen some of those areas of your leg. Check with your local community pools.
As long time sufferer of knee pain, I wanted to chime in. Many years ago while in grad school, both my knees blew up . Both were extremely painful and swollen. I was on advil for about a week before the swelling went down, and I wasn’t able to see an ortho until school was done. He diagnosed me with PFS and after some x-rays, mild OA. I had PT 2- 3x a week for over two months. Turns out, I had extremely weak quads which threw my kneecaps out of alignment. I ran through the entire gamut of therapies -exercises to stretch and strengthen the quads, orthotics, taping the knee, ice, and advil. What works differ from person to person. After my pain diminished to a tolerable level, I was placed on an exercise bike to strengthen my quads even more. I was also told to watch my posture and avoid sitting with my knees bent.
Is your PT giving you stretching exercises to do as well? I find that when certain muscles are very tight, the pain and the alignment of my kneecaps are worse.
Hi MommaJ – it sounds painful! I have not had this particular pain (yet!) but I found some good insights about my proximal hamstring strain on Runners World, and I found this about runner’s knee - -hope it has useful info for you!
http://www.runnersworld.com/training-video/inside-the-doctors-office-with-dr-jordan-metzl-runners-knee
D was diagnosed with this when she was a teenager. According to the doc, her growth spurt led to this - the muscles were not strong enough, hadn’t grown correspondingly leading to this issue. She went through PT, wore a brace while playing basketball or softball. The doc wanted her to stop playing - but that was never an option for my D. She toughed it out - resorting to ice and sometimes painkillers after each game. No point in reasoning with a stubborn teenager!
Funnily enough, the problem seems to have resolved itself as the years went on. The doctor had indeed said that this could happen - but surgery was recommended after she turned 18 in case things got worse. Lucky for her though, the knee is much better now - and she now runs on a regular basis, completing a few half marathons. The one thing that hasn’t gone away is that she can wiggle her knee cap in a very funny way -it looks so awkward and painful when she does that, but apparently it isn’t painful!
Is this the same thing chondromalacia patellae? I “hurt” my knee a couple of months ago while riding my bike, and have been doing PT to little improvement. Doc says I probably also have plica syndrome (both D’s had surgery for that). I had an MRI last week that apparently confirmed his suspicions.
I’m mulling over having my knee scoped and cleaned out, plica removed. I’m tired of this, and even though I’ve been back on the bike, can’t go more than about 20 or 30 minutes without having consequences. But always hate having surgery. I don’t like going under and not having control over my circumstances.
Had an annular tear in my back today after bending over to put something into a cabinet.
Dying young would be a bad thing, but getting older has its downsides, that’s for damn sure…
Let us know if your PT comes up with any easy quad strengthening exercises. I have a similar knee prob, but haven’t yet found a good quad exercise that doesn’t hurt like heck. We just got back from England/Ireland and I foolishly climbed a castle tower only to discover that the ride down on the tight spiral staircase was a killer for the knee.
S1 also has this issue. He uses his thumb with pressure to press down from mid quad to top of knee until he finds a tender spot/adhesion. He holds the pressure point and for him this is a great temp fix.
@Nrdsb4, according to Wikipedia they aren’t the same:
But it seems that it’s not easy to diagnose cartilage damage without an invasive procedure, so I think the docs just make their best guess. If the quad strengthening exercises work, then there was probably no cartilage involvement. My doc is having me go through the PT process, and if it doesn’t help, I’m to return for a scan of some type.
I have some modest improvement so far–a few not-so-bad-days here and there, as opposed to the consistently bad days I was having before (and don’t ask about rainy days)–but I fear some of that may just be attributable to the way I’m babying my knee–minimizing my trips up and down stairs in my home to twice a day (if I want something on the other level I just live without it) and doing that one step at a time toddler thing when I do climb and descend; minimizing my driving as much as possible, since that seems to be the very worst thing for my knee; keeping my leg elevated as much as possible; and applying ice twice a day. And certainly none of those things are a permanent solution. So at the end of the day it’s hard to tell if there’s been real improvement, and my physical therapist is making noises like she thinks I’m not improving fast enough, suggesting I see the doc again even though we haven’t completed the full series of sessions he ordered.
@Kajon, I can’t say any of the numerous quad exercises I’m doing are easy, but none of them make my knee hurt, and if my therapist tries something new, she always asks if it’s hurting my knee and has me stop right away if it does. She gave me quite a workout on Friday, and by the evening my thighs were screaming at me–but not my knee. One example is the side lying hip abduction (look it up) which addresses the outer hip area, but doesn’t seem to affect my knee at all. Are the exercises you’re trying prescribed by a PT? I don’t think this is a good do-it-yourself project.
My daughter is a runner ( currently a college sophomore) and ruined her knees her junior year of HS after running every single day for 5-8 miles. She refused to give her knees a break. She went to the orthopedist several times ( had 4 visits total) and went for PT and religiously does the exercises. She also foam rolls. Her knees started to get better until she sat in the car last year for 9 hours with her knees bent- that’s a big no no. Her knees were so bad at one point that she cried and only had one pair of shoes that were tolerable. Her X Ray was normal. Has not yet had an MRI.
Fast forward to now: she is getting much much better. Runs 3x a week and not every day. Swims the other days. She does the PT exercises and foam rolls regularly. I took her to the podiatrist in August and he took one look at her feet and said that they were rolling in, which put pressure on her knees. She also has a mild structural abnormality in her feet- very minor- but that may be contributing. We got her custom orthotics and that helped considerably.
Right now she gets minor pain but nothing like she had, and many days she is fine. She can also wear all shoes now and not just certain sneakers. She has an MRI in December but the doctor says it won’t show anything- I agree given that she is getting much better. We will get it just to be on the safe side. PT, foam rolling, rest, orthotics have all helped- but healing is a long, long process.
Yes, I have had this. No, I have never been a runner. Mine came about after my second pregnancy. My doctor gave me leg strengthening exercises for the muscles around the knee, including the quads. I did them faithfully and it did help. As I began adding exercise classes, I paid particular attention to any that would stabilize my knees and was very particular about technique in squats and weights. I did use a knee brace when I skied for a few years.
Although I did get relief eventually after working on the exercises for a while, it would flare up occasionally. Going down stairs was more painful than going up, for instance. I would look at stairs and dread them, even short flights. No more. However, as I got more routines with my exercise classes, the less I remember having knee issues. Now, I can’t even remember the last time my knees hurt like that.
So there can be an end to it, but it does take a level of commitment to strengthening and keeping those muscles balanced.
Thought I’d post an update.
I’ve been religious about attending therapy sessions and doing the exercises at home. I seemed to be improving, but at the same time I was strengthening my quads, I was also doing things to keep stress off my knee–i.e., icing it twice a day, keeping it elevated when I’m seated, minimizing my trips up and down the stairs in my house (and doing my “toddler” style climb and descent), consolidating my errands so I’d only drive once a day, and wearing the stabilizing New Balance 990’s to keep my feet from pronating.
Then along came Thanksgiving week, and I had to resume “normal” life–cooking and cleaning, going up and down the stairs, shlepping around stores with my kids, going out for dinner and a movie one evening (so my knee was in bent position for quite a few hours), wearing “normal” shoes a couple of days, etc. And by Saturday I felt like I was back at square one. Stronger quads, but the same pain. A few days of babying my knee again got me back to where I had been, but now I have to wonder if all of the improvement was attributable to the babying and not to the PT. My therapist admits she has no idea either.
I plan to finish out my 20 prescribed PT sessions and see where I am before heading back to the orthopedist, but I can’t help but feel discouraged, despite some of the positive experiences you guys have been kind enough to share.I can’t spend the rest of my life avoiding the use of my knee, but that seems to be the only solution so far.
I had my knee scoped yesterday after experiences similar to @ MommaJ (the only thing that really helped was just not using my knee at all, and staying off the bike). The doc said my kneecap was a mess. He cleaned it up, removed the plica,and sent me home later that day.
I’m hopeful I’ll be able to work my way onto the bike and finally get back to my former joy.
Good luck to you, MommaJ.
MommaJ, I can’t explain why 80% of my pain went away since this thread started, just that it sometimes does. I do think the right shoes can help, maybe they align the legs better. The frustrating thing about this is the not knowing what.