I’ve been alive for 18 years, and look a few years younger than that. My knees, though, are apparently really fucking confused, and think I’m, say, 81. A simple error, so can we please correct it now?
I’ve been having knee problems on and off for nearly five years now. It started innocently enough. I spent one summer working out, a lot, and ended up with tendonitis. I rested for the requisite three weeks, went back, and aside from occasional pain after drills that put a lot of stress on your knees, I was fine for about a year. Then the tendonitis came back. Rinse and repeat about three times.
Every time in the past, it’s ‘gone away’ within a month or two. But I’ve been having semi-constant knee pain since August, it’s getting worse, and I’m fucking sick of it. There are very few things I enjoy more than martial arts, so it’s a big thing for me to even take a few weeks off. I enjoy - not quite as much, but still a lot - working out on my own. It’s my free psychotherapy: loud music, a treadmill, maybe some weights. I’m living in one of the best areas of the country for mountain biking, but the stress that riding uphill puts on my knees creates nearly unbearable pain.
I’m 18 years old. I should not need to give up my fucking passion because I’ve got goddamn arthritis or whatever the fuck in my knees. They hurt right now, despite the ibuprofen I took an hour ago. Also, despite the fact that the only vaguely-physical activity I’ve engaged in today was walking half a mile to work, and then half a mile back home. I’m so fucking sick of this. Of course, the way I most often deal with intense frustration is a long, strenuous workout, but without access to a pool, it’s pretty much impossible to not stress your knees and get a decent cardio workout.
I know I need to go see a doctor. I should’ve months ago, but I’ve got a completely irrational and stupid phobia of doing so. And at this point, I’m in some delusional world where if someone doesn’t tell me that I’ve serious fucked up my knees at the ripe old age of 18, then the problem will take care of itself. I probably will go when I’m home next month, though, because I’m so fucking sick of being in pain all the fucking time. Even then, they’re probably just going to say “Yep, no more working out for you, you’re fucked” or say it needs surgery to correct it; those two things are equally horrible in my mind.
I know this is stupid and petty and entirely my fault - I should’ve taken some responsibilty, say, two years ago and seen a doctor again. I didn’t, yeah, I’m bad, whatever. It has no impact on anyone but me, I’m an irresponsble young idiot, blah blah blah. The fact that I know that this is all my fault just makes it feel even worse.
My bad knee hurts because I’m over 50 and overweight and because I did stupid things to strain it when I was young and thin. No tut-tutting you here. I feel your pain.
It won’t fix it, but if you aren’t already doing this, it might help to wear a knee brace, one of those neoprene ones that Velcros above and below the joint, with a hole for the kneecap. When my bum knee is really bad, wearing a brace helps enough that I can be mobile.
Bleck - that’s pretty horrible. I have tendonitis in my ankles, and have had since I was in my early teens, and it plays up a bit if ever I have to sprint. I’m not a very sporty person, though, so it isn’t so bad. It must suck having that sort of thing stop you from pursuing your interests. You have my sympathy.
Also, that’s the most beautifully descriptive and accurate thread title I’ve ever seen, I think.
See, that’s the sad thing. I do wear knee supports fairly regularly (for my less-bad knee, it’s more comfortable to wear one of those bands that you put on right beneath your kneecap). And I really ought to go ahead and just tell the nice folks at Tiger Balm that I’m personally supporting their company, all on my own. And the folks who make ibuprofen. And those awesome Tiger Balm patches, which are, like, little sticky pieces of fabric soaked in Tiger Balm…hours of fun-smelling pain relief!
I hate to say it, NC , but if your knees are hurting that badly after a heavy workout, I think you’re doing something wrong.
Without having seen you do anything, but listening to your descriptions, it sounds to me like you are not pivoting completely on your base foot while kicking and/or you are throwing round kicks from the knee and not from the hip. Either one of those will stress your knees badly.
Good luck. Remember that all athletes love RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation).
Have you tried taking glucosamine as a supplement?
I ripped the miniscus in my left knee a few years ago. Fortunately, I found a terrific orthopedic surgeon who was able to repair it. The glucosamine also made a big difference.
Also, I recommend a home cryotherapy unit to ice down your knee. The expense is well worth it.
Tendinitis is a bitch. Osteoarthritis is an even bigger bitch. Rheumatoid arthritis is the biggest bitch. Go to the doctor to make sure you have tendinitis. There are worse things. Trust meeee!
If you’ve been having chronic pain on and off for 5 years, you really need to see a doctor. That is not normal and doesn’t sound like something which will get better over time.
Of the hundreds of things it may be, one possibility is that you have a cyst in your kneebone just under the cartilage. That would give you symptoms like what you’re describing. It would be fine as long as it didn’t get pressed down too hard, but once it did, you’d get some swelling and that would produce some pain. A cyst like that doesn’t go away on its own, but a doctor can fix it.
One thing about bone and joint problems is that it really, really, really makes a big difference if you get them taken care of while you are younger. One reason is so that you don’t continually re-injure the area and produce scar tissue. Another is that your body’s ability to heal is much better the younger you are. So if you get this taken care of when you are 18, your knee might get back to 100%. But if you wait until you are 30 or 40, you’ll get less improvement.
Doctors have great tools at their disposal now. An MRI may show exactly what the problem is and is completely painless.
Oh, NinjaChick. I can so feel your pain ---- though you definitely have me trumped on the righteous indignation about it happening to you at your age. I was approximately twice your age before the warranties started expiring on various body parts, much to my chagrin.
I’ll pass along some of what I’ve learned the hard, hard way. I hope you’re able to learn from some of my experience and do some things the right way, instead of cursing at your bum luck when you keep running into the same injury from doing the same thing over and over rather than realizing you HAVE to make some changes. (Been there, did it several times; I’m very hard headed.)
I’m currently working on healing a case of achilles tendonitis. Except for a couple of months when I was sidelined with a heart ailment, I’ve probably been either been nursing an acute injury or just on the edge of an overuse injury for a good decade or so. I pretty much forgot what it felt like to have a heel that didn’t hurt.
It got really, really bad last year, and I finally went to see my orthopaedic surgeon, who referred me to a podiatrist in his practice. After neither drugs nor physical therapy seemed to really help my problem, I had to stop aerobics classes cold turkey, and give up the fitness walking I did just about daily. (If you consider the fact that I chose my user name because I identified so much with the fact I taught walking classes at a YMCA, you can guess how much that hurt.) I was still able to do deep water aerobics several times a week to help keep from totally losing my fitness level and my mind. (I tend to slide into depression if I don’t work out regularly.) Things are improving; I’ve now been able to add back a couple of kick boxing classes per week to my water aerobics, and I walk my son to and from school each day. I feel like I’m about ready to add one more serious workout day a week, so I will try that carefully, and then stay at that level a good while before attempting more.
Piece of Advice #1: Don’t use painkillers to temper the pain enough to enable you to do further, more severe injury. My podiatrist was very wishy-washy. “Well, you can try this prescription drug; or maybe you can try physical therapy; here, take the prescriptions for both.” He gave me Mobic, which was some really, really good stuff — or so I thought. I had had to cut back my workout schedule before I went to see him. With the Mobic, though, I could go right back to 5 - 6 aerobics classes a week, plus lots of walking, and the pain in my heel stayed at the dull roar level I was accustomed to! Cool — except for the fact that he would only prescribe Mobic for short term use. (And, frankly, that’s all I’d asked for. Even I was responsible enough to worry about the increased damage I could be doing with the happy little drugs if I kept it up for long. I do not want a ruptured Achilles.)
Piece of Advice #2: You need to find out what’s causing the problems, and either cut back on it, or eliminate it. (This is where a good physical therapist, particularly one familiar with martial arts, or a good personal trainer could help out.) My physical therapy experience didn’t do much for me, but I honestly think that if I had shopped around more and found one who would do what I really wanted ---- help me identify what movements I was doing that were causing the problem, and helping me work around them — I would have been much better off.
I took tae kwon do for a few years, up through the deputy black belt level. (It was also one of the major contributors to my problems — the podiatrist and PT both said I should never even walk around the house barefoot anymore, let alone do jumping kicks, running around, etc. And classes at our Y were taught in a room with a concrete floor, which made things even worse.)
I’m not saying that you should drop martial arts — but you (and your doctor and/or PT) should take a good, hard look at what you’re doing in martial arts that is contributing to your problem. I do know that when I started taking TKD, I was absolutely horrified by some of the stretches and drills they were doing — hurdler stretches, duck walking, etc. Those moves were strictly outlawed for group fitness instructors at the Y because they were identified as contraindicated moves by the major governing bodies in fitness (ACE, AFAA, and YMCA of the USA.) Our TKD instructors, however, came from an outside TKD school, and didn’t follow the same rules.
Anyhow, identify what these problem moves are, and then just take them out of your workouts. You may need to discuss this with the instructors and master at your dojang, but I’m sure they’ll work with you. And, yeah, I know it sucks and it hurts your pride and may feel like you’re wimping out if you pull out of group exercises ---- but if you want to stay healthy enough to stay in this for the long run, this is your best bet. There may be some moves that are not great for you, but you may be able to do in moderation when you’re healed up some. You’ll have to decide your priorities later. I would drop the high-risk moves that are just for drill only, anyhow, and maybe just watch yourself and cut back on the more moderate risk moves that you feel you can’t do without. Maintaining good form and avoiding hyperextension will be crucial.
Piece of Advice #3: Ice, ice baby. When I first went to the doctor and he asked what I did for the pain, I told them I iced it, and took ibuprofen. That was true, but I’ve since learned that I didn’t do nearly enough of either. I iced it when it particularly hurt — which typically was after a heavy workout. I really should have been doing it a lot more. I could touch my heel any time of the day and it felt puffy and warm, which meant that there was constantly some inflammation going on. Once I started icing my foot two to three times a day, whether I had worked out or not, and whether it was actively hurting or not, I saw some BIG improvement in the inflammation. I kept this up until the constant inflammation went away.
I also only took ibuprofen when it was actively hurting me, and proudly told myself that since ibuprofen was an anti-inflammatory I was doing some good. I’ve since learned from Qadgop the Mercotan’s posts on other issues that it wasn’t doing a damned thing for inflammation on the erratic schedule I was taking it. I know a lot of people who treat it like Vitamin I and take it constantly to mask the pain so they can beat up their bodies at higher levels, and that’s something I really want to avoid. I would recommend it to you, too — take it as needed to get over acute incidents, but remember it’s not intended to be a way of life.
This will be one of the hardest parts to learn, but there’s no such thing as “the requisite three weeks.” The writing is on the wall in great big letters that it’s not going to be a simple “Three weeks of rest and you’re cured” situation for you. Bitch and moan, and I’ll join you in the chorus because it sucks, but it’s clear that you’re asking more of your body than it’s able to stand. Your youth and good condition is already giving you an advantage that you won’t have a decade or so from now (when “three weeks” will stretch to a much, much longer time), but if you don’t make some kind of change in what you’re doing, you risk screwing yourself up really badly so that dropping doing some things you like to do is no longer a choice, but a necessity.
IANAD. I really recommend you go see a good orthopaedic surgeon. If you know anyone who’s active and has one they like (an amazing number of avid runners past the age of 30 will have one), you might start there for a referral. Otherwise, you could look for one who specializes in sports medicine (as well as knees.) Make sure you make it clear that you need help in identifying what you need to do to maintain your active lifestyle for a long, long time.
Good luck with this. I really, really do sympathize.
Clothahump - that’s not it. It’s not as if there’s one particular thing I’m doing wrong. In the several years I’ve been dealing iwth this problem, that much I’ve figured out.
Various people - I am going to see a doctor. I’m home for the summer in about a month, so I’m going to wait until then (when I know of a sports doctor in the area, and have access to a car and such)…I figure I’ve been screwing myself over for the past several years, one more month isn’t going to make any difference.
And ice doesn’t usually help. Sometimes, post-workout ice does, but othertimes (especially at night, when my knees ache), the only thing that really help is wrapping them and heat. :mad:
An anti-inflamatory combined with cold therapy might give you a relief. When my tendonitis flares up, I take ibuprophen for a few days until the inflamation calms down. It might be worth a try.
Doesn’t work how? Doesn’t reduce pain, or doesn’t reduce inflammation?
I’m assuming at this point that you do have some inflammation ---- that is, some area around the knee feels warmer than the surrounding area. It may also be a little reddened and/or puffy.
Icing never made me more comfortable. Actually, icing is pretty unpleasant, but I’ve gotten to the point where I tolerate it fairly well. It’s more of an aid to the healing process rather than a method of immediate pain relief (although it may numb you up enough to make things a little better.)
Not knowing exactly what your injury is, I’m not competent to comment on how to treat it. But definitely plan to discuss with your doctor when it is appropriate to use heat, and when to use ice. IIRC, it’s generally inappropriate to apply heat the first few days after an actute injury and there’s swelling going on.
Could you get a referral to a physical therapist? I had a knee injury a couple of years ago and they put me through a couple of weeks of therapy–an hour a day of massage, stretching, exercise, TENS treatments and ice. My insurance paid for it, although I had to pay a copay for each session. Part of the idea though, was to work on developing certain neglected muscles that would help me avoid future injuries.
I literally feel your pain and then some. I had surgery on my left knee (overhaul on my tendons and ligaments to hold my kneecap and fibula in place)…when I was 13. Took 6 months to get back to where I was before the surgery (cast and then physical therapy). Got a nice 11 inch, 44 stitch scar from it. My kneecap and fibula started popping out joint at the ripe age of 9 and it just got worse year to year. Had to quit football at 11 and took up swimming to strengthen it. Now at 41, it’s arthritic and flares up from time to time. Thankfully, I don’t need knee replacement surgery…yet.
Swim for therapy…it’s great physical excercise and the water is great resistence for muscles without the bone-jarring impact of landing on your feet or running.