I was able to move my Sports Medicine appoint from this Tuesday to last Wednesday. I was thrilled! I called on Monday at 8:30am to see if there had been any cancellations and there had been! On Wednesday afternoon, which is the absolute best time for me to schedule appointments because we get out early on Wednesdays, and it’s a lot easier to miss a staff meeting than class.
Sadly, I was not as enthused when I left as when I walked in.
Turns out I am 45, and this is what having 45 year old knees is. He did an ultrasound and showed me the inflammation, which was milky colored which means it wasn’t new or acute, but suggested a chronic condition. He showed me that my bones are closer together on my left knee, which means the cartilage is more easily damaged. He said it’s definitely my meniscus, which was clearly inflamed on the ultrasound, but since he didn’t believe it was an acute injury he didn’t think an MRI was necessary. Basically, my knee is stable and I just have to figure out what makes it hurt and avoid that.
To say that I left feeling bummed out would be an understatement.
But, I kept myself from spiraling. Even though the ambiguity of “chronic inflammation” and “relative rest” (relative? relative to what?!) is hard for me to handle, I did not lose my shit. I definitely let myself grieve for my youth, when I didn’t need to be constantly fortifying myself against overuse injuries. But then I sucked it up and started googling.
Luckily my dojo bestie had already sent me her “favorite meniscus guy,” so I immediately dove in to his youtube channel. He had a message of hope, that one can return to the activities they love without meniscus pain. I watched almost an hour of his content, and felt better. I will be focusing on strengthening my glutes, and activating them more during pretty much all physical activities. This is already something I have worked on, and I had restarted my Strong Glutes program (which I believe helped me overcome chronic piriformas pain years ago) before I heard him talk about muscle imbalance (overused quads and hamstrings, underused glutes) causing meniscus pain.
About 48 hours after the appointment, I felt even better, because I had an idea of what might have triggered the pain in my knee. One of the questions the doctor asked me over and over again was, what did you do to piss it off (it being my meniscus) and I was panicking partly because I couldn’t think of a damn thing. I hadn’t been at the dojo for a couple weeks because I aggravated an old ACJ injury, so I was giving my shoulder time to heal. I hadn’t done any significant weight work the week before either. But then I remembered that the day before the run where it flared, I had hiked for five miles with my mom, in my zero drop shoes. I had also hiked in those shoes in Death Valley two weeks before. I believe those were the first long hikes I did in those shoes, and I think that might have been what caused the inflammation.
I definitely over pronate, and I buy running shoes that support against over-pronation and even buy expensive insoles that further guard against it. I bet all that hiking in shoes that do nothing to protect my knees from over pronation was the trigger for this, and identifying a probable cause made me feel a lot better, especially since that cause is so easily avoided.
So here I am, trying to wrap my head around the idea of “relative rest.” I’m thankful that the pain has settled to a very manageable place, and icing and NSAIDs aren’t necessary. I haven’t even been wearing a compression sleeve as much and my knee keeps feeling better. I’ll probably wait at least a couple more weeks (maybe a month?) before I attempt running (he suggested that if I’ve been pain free for a week I can give it a try and see how it goes – again, trying to embrace the ambiguity here!) I’m definitely more weary of returning to the dojo, where we get into deep stances and do a ton of pivoting and lateral movements, all of which I “feel” right now.
I will admit that between the ACJ flair and this new (and yet already chronic) knee issues, I’m feeling a little salty. I just want to be able to do all the things I love to do without my joints hurting! But I’m coming to understand that I’m going to have to do a lot of extra work to protect myself from overuse injuries moving forward. It’s just the reality of staying active in the second half of my life. The sooner I stop sulking about it, the better.
Learning now to take care of your joints…. and actually doing it…. will make such a difference when you are actually really aging. Ask your mom.
Not only should you learn NOW, you should also teach your children and look at their feet, knees, hips., shoulders and movement behaviors. They are not too young to learn about preserving their joints and their eyes & teeth.
At 45 a person is half way to 90. Not needing joint replacement now or in your 70″s and 80’s much less in your 60’s really is a good, happy, idea. As they say: only floss the teeth you want to keep. It applies to your joints too.
You are so lucky to have such helpful body mechanics information available to you already. I am delighted that surgeries are not needed now.
That is hard news to swallow. You so have my sympathy. Not being 18 any more is tough. I have trouble with that too and am LOTS older than you.
Support! This really is good news, you are motivated, smart, and you follow through!
My mom has had surgery on both her knees. I think that is part of why this overuse injury stresses me out so much. My mom didn’t even run and he knees ended up really messed up. What will happen to mine? She also has shoulder issues! Sigh.
That is my point. The older you get the more important it is to take care of your body …. and to teach the younger ones to start doing it early. I also hope for faster medical research these days …. heard Germany has some new drug under way that helps regrow your own cartilage, so most knee replacements due to arthritis wearing it down can be avoided. But it was a brief news snippet and I have heard nothing more … perhaps because it is EU medical research and science. But I don’t know.
What I do know from personal experience is that joint injuries from our youth can re-bite us in our older years. I am old, surprises me how very old. It is tough to both exercise AND care for our joints. I am so sorry for your mom! The replacements help but are not perfect in many ways and the surgeries are NOT simple with LONG recoveries. Hope your father’s side of the family does not also have joint issues with age.
Thank you for always being kind to me! It means a great deal.
I guess it’s too late for this, but I do recommend marrying a physical therapist. Hee hee. I probably tore my meniscus years ago and Coach gave me exercises to do. I think you’re on the right track, strengthening certain muscle groups, etc. I’ve not felt my meniscus in years, so I think you’ll move past it and be able to do lots of things. I’m pretty active.
Man, I wish I married a physical therapist! Or a chiropractor. Or someone who does both! Yes please. It’s good to hear that you had issues and now you don’t anymore! I will clink to that!
I just had meeting with sport doctor and really helped! hope yours can help with finding a path to go back to activity. through the last half year or so to search for fixing of my knee, one thing I learned is never give up, there’s always a way.
There is nothing more frustrating than going to the doctor and being told what is what and then left to figure out what to do about it. But you know what, maybe it’s good that it’s not an acute injury but something that can be fixed through strengthening and stabilizing going forward (which in turn will prevent further overuse injuries). Maybe it’s a good thing that we have to learn as we get older to not just “do the fun stuff”, but also build in the necessary stuff to keep our bodies going.
I think you’re right, that this may be better than acute injury. I think it’s the ambiguity of “relative rest” and do what doesn’t make it hurt that is hard for me. When I had an acute injury there was a set time to let it heal that was recommended, but with this I feel like I have to just grasp around in the dark and that is really hard for me.