I WIN KNEE PAIN

Sometimes the things you have to work hardest for give the greatest sense of achievment.

I’ve done it. I’ve won the battle of the maltracking patella.

Tonight I walked 5. 3km without my knee taped. Only I know how hard I’ve worked to achieve this. I’ve done the Muttonbitd Island walk countless times in various stages of pain over three and a half years.

Down past the Jetty restuarants hoping that my knee might be alright. Waiting for good trains that shake the earth under my feet at the railway crossing, when the boom gates close and the red light flashes. It hurts when I stop walking.

Out along the breakwall near the Marina, the tightness and pain starting. A big swell sweeping the wall and sometimes overtopping it. The 8:30am Virgin Blue flight coming into land; the spring carpet of Senecios turning Muttonbird Island yellow;  the winter tide washing the rocks at the base of dog beach, or the tide miles out to sea.  Many seasons have come and gone during this battle. Turn around at the base of Muttonbird Island, try to stretch hammies and ITB to loosen up.

I recall saying to my knee, I just want to walk without pain is that too much to ask? The vice like tightness, the burning nerve pain, everywhere, the eye watering pain behind the knee cap. With me everyday of my life.

Out across the dog beach the burning nerve pain used to really set in. Back along Orlando Street pushing through the pain. A pain that I knew would make my life a misery walking down the mall during the week. The stress making me feel dizzy and heavy.  My thoughts spiralling down into darkness, frustration, anger and despair.

Drivers on Orlando honking their horns, or screaming abuse at me. Leave me alone with my pain will you hoons! The drunks rolling home from the Pier Hotel. The pink light of 19 Orlando Street shining. Thinking do people really go in there?

The little girl riding her bike who looked at me and asked “Why so angry?” 

The wonder when I discovered McConnell taping and got immediate pain relief. No knee pain? The screaming had stopped for a moment.

The brief moments of pain relief when I thought I was getting somewhere, the knee cap falling back into its groove; then the horrible setback when a new physiotherapist suggested taping my knee more lightly. The knee cap went further off track that time, I could feel the cartiledge peeling off the side of my knee.

Up the hill on Harbour Drive knowing that I would pay for this walk later on. The pain screaming again like a voice that would never be quiet.

Those days in March 2007 when my foot felt like it was on fire and I’d get an eye watering burning pain in my knee while sitting at my desk at work and not even the tape would work. My life dimished in so many ways. Thinking that I needed surgery.

Obsessed with stretching my hammies, ITB and VMO activations.

People at work no longer wanting to hear, calling me lazy. That was the most frightening thing of all, not even my family wanted to know. A battle I had to fight on my own.

Only my counsellor, Peter, listened. Thanks for that. And of course Brad the physiotherapist who turned the injury around. Am I lucky I saw him? You bet! He said I took the prize for the weakest vastus medialis obliquus (inner quad muscle) he had ever seen. He said that it might take 12 months to rehab my knee and then I might run up to 5km. That was November 2006.

Well it took two and a half years, but I have run up to 20kms. How is that for exceeding expectations?

A knee cap that sounded like a tree branch was breaking. I couldn’t walk to the car without a strangling tightness grippng my inner quad.  I’d dip my leg into the Sawtell Pool to get repsite on the weekends. I actually learnt to swim, depsite hating the pool. Walking around Woolies was a challenge.

Never giving up, doing the strenghtneing and stretching and massage. Trying to eke out every ounce of strenghth in my wasted VMO. Like chipping away at a mountain. Imagining every sign of improvement, resigned to every set back.

Going to sleep with a pillow under or between my knees. Falling to sleep after another set of quad squeezes. Squeezing the pillow even in the dark, obsessed with fighting the battle. Swearing that if I never beat the knee pain I would keep fighting it until my dieing day!

The lunch time walks around Maclean Street oval. Three laps, stretches before and after. Swearing at the knee pain so much one of the neighbours complained as I went past.

The around the block walk after work. The long walk through the car park at Park Beach Plaza.  The fire in the knee always reaing its ugly head.

I kept fighting and figthing and there were moments when my knee started to feel better.

September 2007. One day my knee cap moved over a notch and felt alright. I saw the Eels play the Bulldogs at ANZ. I even ran for the train.

In Perth in Christmas 2007, doing a pain free walk in Meelup Regional Park, playing a round of golf.

Like the field trip to Royal National Park in May 2008. Full days out in the field doing what I love, botany, and no pain.

I ran first on the 18th June 2008. I started to run near the Coffs Sailing Boat club, angry with everything. I ran screaming out loud along the cycle path.

“Come on knee pain. What have you got?” I challenged it.

I swore about how much I hated Coffs Harbour.

I ran all the back to my unit and collapsed on my welcome mat, and curled into a ball and cried for I’m not sure how long, before going inside.  

Remarkeably I found the knee hurt just about as much running as it did walking.

Over the next few weeks I taped my knee and braved some more runs around the Muttonbird Island Circuit. I ran like a zephyr and a slight breeze.

The knee would hurt medially for about a kilometre but then it would warm up.

I went in my first cross country run in two decades in July. I did 24:45 and finished about 20th out of 28 runners. Sometimes the nerve pain stop me running during the week.

Often I’d throw the knee tape off because the pain would be too much. I ran in serveral more races with varying levels of pain until a run at Emerald Beach in early August.

I ran pain free that day and experienced the most unbelievable runners high.

I’ve run 800km with my knee taped.

But tonight I walked 5.3km without pain, without knee tape

I WIN KNEE PAIN

Your quads look like they’re ready to run 100 metres

Another thing my massage therapist said. And that is the problem. My outer quads are huge! Massively dominant V lat, says the physio. The outer thigh has been getting bigger for years, to compensate for a tiny and dysfucntional inner thigh.

The outer thigh is bigger in my injured leg than my ‘good’ leg, or at least it seems so. The inner thigh on my good leg is almost 3 times as big as the injured leg. A lot more work to do, to save it. Oh joy!

Had to go to the Park Avenue Swimming Pool. Sawtell had a swimming carnival on. I swam heaps of laps and even a couple of 50 metres non stop. It takes me about 35 strokes to swim a twenty five. I’m getting more streamlined in the water and trying to keep my legs long and kick a bit. I trying to control my exhale more. I think I tend to blow out bubbles too quickly. Also I try to rotate on my side while breathing.  So much to remember, it’s such a technical sport!

I’ve heard the guy who leases the pool say I’m hopeless. Yeah, maybe, but I’m only learning to swim. I wonder how good anyone was when they were learning? It’s just that I’m 45, not a child. I’ve improved heaps at swimming over the last two years.  At least I’m having a go.

I mean I was a good runner in my twenties, came in the top hundred in the City to Surf. I didn’t knock those for who running didn’t come natural, or were just beginners. At least they were having a go. I wonder why it shouldn’t be the same with swimming? Is it some sort of exclusive club?

My experiences learning to swim were at a place called Guthries. I was progressing very well. Could dive and swim from one side of the pool to the other. One day they put me in a race with two other boys, the whole length of the pool. Thing was Guthries pool was deeper in the middle than it was at the edges. I was not comfortable swimming far in water over my head. I dived in, panicked swam to the side of the pool, and got out bawling my eyes out. Mum took my home, and I never went back to Guthries. In fact I developed a fear of deep water from that moment on.  Avoided water like the plague. Terrestrial sports were my go, forget the pool. I used to go in every event at the athletics carnival, none at the swimming carnival.

If I’d been brought along more gradually at the swimming, who knows I might’ve developed a love of water not a thirty year long fear?  

Without tape

Going to see how my knee copes without knee tape this morning. It’s unbelievable how hard I’m working this knee and how much further I have to go beat it. I seem to be able to tolerate the exercise bike at present, only ten minutes at 15km/hr. I’ve booked in for a massage next Monday.

useful products for patella femoral pain

Below are my rating of some of the producst I have used in my battle agianst patella femoral pain 

Cho pat ITB strap 6/10

chopat patella tendon strap 8/10

protec patella tendon strap 6/10

protec itb strap 7/10

futura patella tendon strap 6/10

pattstrap 2/10

foam roller 3/10

rolling pin 8/10

mcconnell taping 9/10

value tape 8/10

leukotape ‘rigid’spots tape 0/10

leukotape premium plus 0/10

Leukotape specialised Knee tape 1/10

Elastoplast ‘as above’

Sports Massage 8/10

Off the Shelf orthotics “athletes foot’ 8/10

I went for a walk tonight, from my unit, up Muttonbird Island hill, back along high street, and home. It took me 71 minutes 03 for 6.6 kilometres, average heart beat/ hr 113. I used to be able to this in 53 minutes, average heart rate 122. My knee felt good, only a couple of snatches of pain.

Walk on by

This morning I’ve been walking around without tape without too much discomfort. Knee settled down last night, the burning foot pain took a vacation. It’s like watching grass grow, or paint dry, but my inner thigh muscle is visibly stronger, and it is holding my knee cap in a better possy. Giving the patella tendon a bit of a friction massge seems to loosen it up. I’ll tape it up now and do the exercises. After 16 months it’s hard to remain patient.

ITB self massage. I use a rolling pin. I started with a foam roller, but is lost its firmness quite quickly and was less effective. Bascially I lie on my side, with the pin on the ground. Then I roll my leg over the pin from the beginning of the vastus lateralis tendon, over the body of the ITB to the hip. When I first started my ITB was like setting concrete, and it hurt after a couple  of rolls. Now I do about 200 hundred a day, and the ITB is soft. When the ITB is soft my knee feels as its best. The sports massage therapist gets into parts of the ITB I can’t reach, like the attachment of the VL tendon to the ITB.  I see him every month. I also roll my calves with the pin. You can also buy massage sticks.

patella tendon

I think some of my current discomfort is coming from my patella tendon. My massage therpaist said it was tight and bunched. He showed me how to give it  a massage. The massage involves using my fingers to rub the outside of the tendon where it attaches to the femur. It does help loosen things up. At the moment the outside edge of it is sore to the touch. This morning the leg felt loose and pain free. I walked around freely with no tape on.  When I put the tape on the patella tnedon starts to complain. Hopefully I am getting somewhere at last. I wore my Brooks radius shoes yesterday. They have a broader sole, which h9elps me -place my foot more on the instep

Massage

Had a massage today. Wasn’t as helpful as the first one last December. My leg is on fire tonight. It’s setteled down with some ice and an anti inflamms. I’ve put a light tape on tonight and things feel a bit looser.  The whole leg feels hot, every time I put my foot down it feels like there is heat in it. There seems to be a flap of cartiledge on the edge of my knee that catches all the time. I think I’ll go to bed early and try to forget.

When I have nothing to say my lips are sealed

Haven’t wanted to write anything in here because it would have been all too depressing. I’ve been in pain the last few days and feeling a bit sorry for myself and seeing some negative scenarios of a long future of increasing severity of mt knee problems. The positives of the 10th February seem a long time ago now.

You know I think my problems at the moment are taping issues. I think I have just about got it right. The taping is more symmetrical, and I think the way I have been taping it causes it lean to one side.  It causes a nerve type pain to build up.

Tommorrow I have an appointment with the massage therapist that helped me before christmas. Hopefully he can help me out again. I also noticed that Brad McIntosh has set up a practice in Sydney. I might make an appointment to see him.  Right now I am confused about how to tape the knee. I think I’d like to continue with the original physiotherapist. There’s less travelling than going all the way to Mosman.