Knee Problems- What has helped?

chubbybunnee

I have been successfully losing weight for the past 3 months with my knee pain. I know this isn't going to stop my progress, but it is limiting me in what I can do currently.

I had patellar subluxation in my left knee and had a partial patellar tendon transfer July of 2010. The surgeon said I would be good as new in 1 year...well it's not. In fact, I get more pain now then pre surgery and it swells and hurts really bad when I jog, lunge, bend my knees, and walk up stairs. Lots of swelling after every work out and pain even just when I touch my kneecap. I do not want more surgery so I did some research and found that some have said that certain exercises can strengthen your muscles around the knee and in your quads and actually decrease the amount of pain you have if not get rid of it all together!

Have any of you out there had knee problems that were fixed with strengthening muscles around the area? I am very interested in knowing if some of you have had it help and which exercises helped the most.

Knee surgeon says push through the pain and do everything I want to, and PCM says don't jog, run, or do any bending. I am trying to find a happy medium where I can still do lunges and jog but am looking for ways to strengthen my knee so it doesn't hurt as bad. I am pretty tough! I jumprope even though the pain is unbearable some days, and ice it at night and do it again the next day. MRI showed knee cap is still slightly off track but other then that, that everything is normal so physically, it doesn't seem like I should be in so much pain, but I am. I was told this is different then runners knee or a torn meniscus, but we would all have the same or similar physical therapy and training exercises for strengthening those muscles.

Any suggestions and insight would be very much appreciated!

chuckles217

Look in to a compression knee support device. I use one that is made of an elastic and has Velcro to allow you to further adjust the compression level. You won't want one that has the metal or rigid supports on the sides though.

bahacca

I went to physical therapy for knee pain and was trained with exercises. I did quad leg curls-hold for count of 10 and down. Then I did a thing where you sit on the floor, legs straight in front of you and back STRAIGHT. Turn your hip and entire leg out (first position if you are a dancer) Then lift your leg off the ground and hold for 5, then lower. Repeat.

chubbybunnee

Thanks for the advice! Someone just told me that taping may help! I have never taped before though so I wouldn't want to mess it up. I'm going to youtube and see if I can find a video!

Azdak

Any chronic joint pain has to be addressed in a comprehensive way. You do not mention whether you underwent any physical therapy following your surgery. If you did, then returning to that program might be helpful.

When you have chronic pain, you have to deal with the immediate pain/swelling, but also address the underlying conditions that are causing the pain. Merely treating the pain symptoms does little to address the underlying problem --if that's all one does, then one is unlikely to achieve long-term results.

Taping and bracing have to be approached with caution. By themselves, they tend to be more 'symptom treaters" than interventions that actually address the problem. In the case of an active person who wants to try to continue exercising while treating the symptoms and rehabbing the joint, they can sometimes be helpful. Long-term, IMO braces and taping are more "last resort" interventions--meaning you have reached a point where physically you cannot do any more to make the joint stronger. In any case, braces or taping should be done/selected/demonstrated by a professional and should not be used as the only intervention.

Obviously, there is no way to address your specific symptoms in a forum, but there are some things you can do that will "do no harm"--they are generally good for a variety of knee conditions, so even if they don't work, they should not make things worse.

The first thing is that you have to stop doing things that cause pain/make the pain worse. These are usually going to include high-impact activities and movements that load the joint when the knee is flexed greater than 45 degrees. So that means laying off full lunges, jogging, and jumping exercises for a while.

You need to stretch--quads, hamstrings, calves, IT band, glutes, hip flexors. You can find plenty of exercises.

You need to strengthen: quads, hip adductors, hip abductors, and hip flexors. It is usually recommended to begin with open-chain exercises. These can include the straight leg lifts described above, and other floor exercises to work on the others. Again, google and youtube should provide some good examples. You can try leg extensions on a gym machine, with the following important caveats: do one leg at a time; start with very light weights (15 reps); set the range limiter so that you are only working through the last 30 degrees or so of extension (in other words, once the knee is straightened, you bend the knee so that the foot/lower leg only lowers 8-12 inches. Try to straighten the knee by squeezing the quad muscles.

Always work below a pain threshold--fatigue and "achiness" OK, sharp, icepick pain--not OK.

If you tolerate the open-chain exercises OK, you can progress to closed chain. This would include mini-squats, mini-lunges, doing the hip exercises from a standing position, one-leg squats off the side of a 4"-8" step, squats on a bosu ball, and some step ups --once again using a lower step. Do 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps. As always, stay below the pain threshold.

Again, these should not cause your condition to worsen. If they work then--yay!--gradually resume your higher-impact activities. If not, you probably need to spend some time with a sports-medicine physical therapist.

Good luck.