I was thinking about my flippant comment that I knew that the knee pain was different and decided that I should share with people just how it is different.
When I am having problems with my ITB, which is a fairly recent issue, the pain is all around the outside of my knee. It hurts more, the more my leg is compressed and I have to bear weight whilst straightening it. So, for example, walking upstairs, when my left leg is in front and I need to bear weight to move to the next step, I have to do this with my foot totally flat on the step and not just on my toe.
When I squat, it hurts on the way back up from the squat if I squat too deep and the same with the leg press. It also hurts when I step off the step and my left leg is left behind, so I have to drop off the step so that there is no weight in the leg behind.
The pain is also a different sort of pain, it is like a vice and it feels like something is going to snap. The best way I can think of it is as if it is like a chicken leg and when you snap if off from the thigh part of the leg, that's what imagine is going to happen with my knee! The chicken being a dead chicken btw, I'm not some kind of crazy person!
My patellar femoral pain is in a whole different league and worries me considerably more. I first experienced an issue with this when I was 24. I started running around the quays in my lunch break to try and get fit for nothing and I stupidly purchased some really cheap trainers without a second thought.
After a while I started to experience some pain behind my knee cap and it gradually got worse and worse, it was like a constant pain behind my knee, pain in the form of how I imagine it would feel if someone was constantly grating away at your tendon with a cheese grater. It got to the point where the pain was so intense, I remember sitting on my bed in my old house, shooting and aching pains radiating from both of my knees and down my shins and also all the way up into my groin. I felt like I just needed to take a hammer to my knee caps and smash them to smithereens to release the pain. It was truly, one of the most debilitating pains I have ever experienced.
Obviously, at this point I knew that nothing was going to help that I could do, so I went to see the doctor. I had private medical with my company at the time so I have no idea why it took me so long to do anything about it.
They diagnosed me with patellar tendinitis (just realised I have been spelling that wrong in my other posts!) I was prescribed Diclofenac Sodium and referred to a physio. I wont go into the ins and outs of it as it will take a million pages. However, I learnt to manage it with support taping and lots and lots of ice and now when I do an activity that may bother it I immediately ice my knees and take some anti -inflammatory and it seems to keep it at bay!
I think what has set it off this time is the prolonged walking on the treadmill, I am not the lightest on my feet so I think the impact has upset it a little. It is caused by my quads having built incorrectly from only ever riding and then my kneecap is pulled out of line. It becomes more apparent when it is prolonged activity as my muscles become fatigued. I haven't experienced this type of pain for a long, long time so I am just hoping that it wont be an issue and I can still do the low intensity cardio exercise. I was also hoping that I had started to balance out some of my weaknesses, we will see.
I iced it last night and used my Pernaton and it has been pain free today, I haven't done any walking since yesterday though.
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