LAE

I know I see a lot of people on here with knee issues so just wanted to ask your opinions on what might be a common problem.

As a generally big active guy (even as a child) I have suffered from osgood-shlatter syndrome/disease (trust me it sounds a lot worse than it is) which is supposed to clear up by 19-20yrs of age but mine never did and doctors/physios etc all simply say nothing can be done. It's essentially a problem where the patella tendon attaches to the Tibia, I have always ran and cycled and done all sorts with it but it always ends up the same, when I up the workload it starts to hurt, straps etc do nothing for it.

Does anyone on here have the same? Or similar? How do you go about relaxing, recovering a tendon?

chasm54

Bad luck. I have no experience with Osgood-Shlatter, but used to have problems with one of my Achilles. Nothing clever about my solution, it was rest and ice.

One thing that may be relevant, I pretty much eliminated the problem by shifting the position of my foot on the pedal. In my case that involved moving the cleat further back on the shoe. Obviously this isn't going to cure your O-S syndrome, but if you tinker around with your position you might find one in which the tendon takes a bit longer before it starts to get irritated?

Seve

Nothing can replace proper medical attention.

Setting that aside for the moment.

Tendon issues usually require a period of complete rest to let things heal properly. From my own experience this is very difficult to do with feet and legs.

Short of staying off your feet for a month or so, the only thing that ever worked for me was to use either tape or a tensor bandage wrap.

Apply the bandage/tape each morning immediately after you awake and remove it at bedtime, regardless of the days activity.

It needs to be protected and allowed to completely heal properly if you are ever going to rid yourself of the pain.

Again, see a Doctor if you can and don't rely upon the internet for such things. :-)

jimc101

Yep, go see your Doctor, you should be able to get a referral to a Physio through them.

LAE

Thanks for the replies guys, as I mentioned in my original post, I have seen many docs and physios over the years an none have helped. I like the idea of strapping morning to night, a physio I visited after a motorbike crash had shown me the technique but I'd forgotten about it. I've also had long periods of rest which do help but the pain follows the same pattern, it's fine at first but more workload = more pain

WonderMonkey

Pay attention to how hard you are pushing on the pedals. You may have to stay in gears that allow you to use a higher cadence rather than a lower cadence where you are muscling things.

Nightshade

+++1,000,000,000 %

Bill Kapaun

Not sure if it applies to you, but I have a knee that doesn't bend quite as far as normal (motorcycle down hard years ago).
I found that going to 165MM cranks allowed me to have "enough" range of motion that longer cranks didn't.
Maybe shorter would help you in the fact you don't have to bend your knee quite as far for each revolution???

Also seat height- Every bit that the seat is lower than it SHOULD be results in more bend.

Peach14

I think Bill Kapaun is on the right track. Since lots of medical and phsio consultations hasn't helped, it seems the adjustment of the pedals/cranks and seat is the most obvious thing to try.

Judi

Since it's a chronic condition and the doctors haven't been able to tell you anything useful, you can't really spend years staying off of it. What about swimming? You can get a lot of exercise swimming without putting a lot of strain on your legs.

About cycling, are you riding every day and then one day you go for a longer ride and the pain starts? Or do you decide one day randomly to go for a long ride, and the next day your knee is killing you? Most of us are sore when we haven't been on the bike in a long time. It sounds like maybe working up to a longer distance very gradually would let your body get used to the exercise without the soreness...assuming that the seat height is right and that you're shifting gears efficiently to minimize strain on your knees.