Hope for Knee Pain

watermstry

I just wanted to offer a little hope and humbly, a little advice for runners who are suffering knee pain.

After running with little pain for most of my life, I developed chronic knee pain while training for a half. I ran through it, thinking that it was just overuse and would get better with some rest after my race. That turned out to be a huge mistake, because it has made my recovery much longer than it needed to be.

After 4 weeks without running, I still had the same pain when I would try to go for a run, so I finally went to a physical therapist. I figured it was my IT band, and that was definitely part of the problem. But I learned that there were many other things going on with my legs and hips that were also contributing to the pain - like tight hamstrings and hips, hip weakness, and glute strength imbalance (somehow, one side was significantly stronger than the other!).

I'm about 70% healthy now, out of therapy, and ready to start running again, and I have to say, I'm scared that the pain will come back. But at least I have more tools to handle it now.

Physical therapy really made me slow down and pay more attention to my body, and I'm grateful for that. I just want to encourage anyone with persistent pain to get yourself to a doctor or PT before it works itself into something really complicated.

nerfherder83

Thanks for this post. I'm actually scheduled to go to physical therapy for hip pain next week. I haven't run in almost 5 weeks but I can still feel pain in the hip when I'm laying down - I haven't done any cardio in over a month and I'm going stir crazy!

I'm curious - what happened in PT? How long did it take, how often did you go, what did they do to determine the other things that were going on with your body? I'm curious because I have NO idea what to expect.

Thanks!

QuincyChick

I ended up running though and ignoring pretty significant pain while training for my first half in 2011. I ended up getting an MRI, which showed that I had some damaged/shredded cartilage (I guess my knee cap was "shredding' some of the cartilage?) that I had removed with a scope. It was an easy procedure, but I was out of the running game for a few months and it definitely taught me a huge lesson!

watermstry

I'm curious - what happened in PT? How long did it take, how often did you go, what did they do to determine the other things that were going on with your body? I'm curious because I have NO idea what to expect.

Thanks!

I went about three days a week. My therapists tried many different techniques: walking on treadmill to warm-up; ultrasound therapy to warm tissues and increase blood flow; strengthening of hips, glutes, hamstring, quads, abductors, and adductors by doing static exercises, and using exercise bands, balance balls, and weights; foam rolling; kinesio taping; stretching; and massage of IT band all the way up to hip (very painful, but effective).

To determine other problems, they just paid attention when I was there - noticed different areas of tightness and weakness, and watched my body positioning. For example, when squatting, my knees moved toward the midline, which they should not, or my hips would drop to one side when standing on one foot.

I would suggest paying close attention to you pain - the more detailed descriptions you can give, the better they can plan each session.

I hope it is going well for you!

watermstry

I ended up running though and ignoring pretty significant pain while training for my first half in 2011. I ended up getting an MRI, which showed that I had some damaged/shredded cartilage (I guess my knee cap was "shredding' some of the cartilage?) that I had removed with a scope. It was an easy procedure, but I was out of the running game for a few months and it definitely taught me a huge lesson!

Ugh, that sounds so painful! I'm glad the fix was easy, though. Injuries can be humbling, and they remind us how precious our bodies are and how much running means in our lives.