Knee Injury need advice
 

I'm a student and don't have time or money to see a physiotherapist. I'm surprised that there isn't more threads about knee injuries on here. I recently moved and my new commutning distance was about 11 km instead of 7. I was mountain biking about once a week and starting to run as well. Something went funny in my knee. At first the little bit of pain didn't bother me I figured it was muscle soreness and i could stretch it out etc.. but it persisted and my knee started clicking when I was walking and I got some sharp pains in the knee under strain when pedalling. I stopped imediately and investigated via the net and came to the conclusion I needed to take time off to let it heal and do some light exercises in the mean time like leg extensions, squats, calf raises etc... well I'm not good at being strict so the exercises wern't consistent. It's been feeling good lately but I did my first commute this morning (11km) and my knee is a little sore and the muscles tense. Obviously I'm in no better shape than a month ago. This must be some overuse injury. what could it be and what do you recommend. I'm sure lots of people reading in the training section have had knee injuries or know of other who have. I'm frustrated, please enlighten me.

As I'm recovering from a knee injury and broken leg at the current time I'd say to stop what you're doing currently and re-think your exercises and recovery.

I would say that the running is what re-did your damage on your knee, because any injury isn't going to like to be pounded on as you run about causing it more stress.

As for exercises...I'm seeing my Physio and she is getting me to do about 3 weeks of light stuff, to which she'll then get me into the gym on the weights and cycling machine to strengthen my knee up and rebuild my muscle loss that I've suffered.

Simple exercises that you can do yourself(Lying on the floor/bed)

1. Lifting my leg about 6" off the floor or bed and holding for about 10 seconds, then slowly lowering back down...repeat this 10 times
2. Lying flat on the floor/bed and pulling the heal back, bending your leg to where you start to feel discomfort...don't bend it no more and then lower back down...repeat 10 times
3. Lying flat on the bed(or anything soft) so you can clench your knee/calf muscles and push the knee down into the bed, holding for 5 seconds...repeating as above 10 times(This exercise will strengthen the tendons and knee muscles the most)

Do these about 3 times a day

You basically want to do simple stuff and not put too much strain on your knee too soon because as you're now finding out, your knee is swelling, sore and causing you problems. Best way to help that is to wrap say a bag of frozen peas in a wet dishcloth and leave on the inflamed area(s) for about 20 mins, moving it around the knee and even at the back of the leg behind the knee.

As a recovered patient from knee ligament replacement, I'd STRONGLY reccomend you see a good doctor. I saw one doctor who told me to 'walk it off' then a 2nd doctor who immediately knew that my knee was held together by thread. My MRI showed that my ACL was severed and MCL had a grade 3 (worst case) tear. I required surgery, but mine was a sudden impact crash (bike of course). Yours sounds like a slow onset which sounds like your meniscus has worn down (the padding between your bones). That's a guess, I'm not a medical professional.

You need to see a doctor who will likely send you to a physiotherapist. Had I not seeked proper mediacal advice I may never have biked again. I ran a marathon last month with NO knee pain and I'll be riding a 300 km ride on Friday. Did I recover properly? You bet your a$$ I did.

If you want to research your symptoms on the internet and make your own diagnosis, that's your business. But nobody here can determine what problem you have because we either are not doctors and/or we cannot examine your knee.

If you are concerned enough to ask about the problem, then you should probably try to find a way to get real medical advice. Sorry if you don't have the time or money, but there are lots of possible injuries with knees and no way for us to determine which of them is yours.

Squats - light exercises?? No way.

Full leg extensions can be quite harmful to a knee.

Why would you do calf raises for your knee?

Spend some time to see an expert. Does your college(school) have a health service?

Knee damage and repair is very serious stuff, and you are skating down the path of permanent, never-ending damage, especially with your Mickey Mouse self-treatments!

Definitely see the expert. Get a job doing anything to pay for it if you have to and/or talk to someone in your school's health center...anything. I have a friend who had a nagging knee injury from back in college and now years later he's recovering after surgery, but the past few years his cycling pretty much went down the drain. The knees are too important to let something go like that.

thanks for putting me in my place. i have been being stupid about this. I'll seek professional help.

Good luck. Let us know what you find out!

I had some knee issues this summer. On my road bike, I raised the seat about 1 cm and the knee issues went away. Then, I got my mtb back from the shop and had a small pain in the front of my left knee. I lowered the seat about 1 cm and the pain went away. If pain is in the back of the knee, raise seat; front of knee, lower seat. This is well known. Be sure to raise or lower seat only a small amount at a time.