Friday, December 24, 2010

Best Christmas Wishes to All

I had an ambitious blog post in the hopper along the lines of "How do you heal through pain-free motion when you're always in pain?" And I will get to it. Next week.

That's because -- alas -- my body has been steadily running downhill since about 10 p.m. last night, when a bit of viral grinchitude derailed my ambitious plans for Christmas Eve. Yes, I have a cold, with the raw throat and swollen sinuses as proof. My productivity, not surprisingly, has dropped off a cliff.

So I thought I'd weigh in briefly now with the obligatory holiday wishes and come back, hopefully recharged and restored, with some thoughts next weekend about exercising when you're in pain but don't want to exercise through pain. I began stitching together a post on that very topic this morning, but when you're not feeling good, it doesn't take long to run out of gas.

The good news is "Saving My Knees" is still on schedule. It looks like it'll be ready about January 8th as an electronic book through Amazon.com. I'll have a lot to say about that in a few weeks -- why only an e-book, how someone without a Kindle can read an e-book (short answer: there are lots and lots of ways).

But for now, I'm just eyeing the bed, after a call to the wife (who's still in China, a piece of my personal story I'll talk about some other time). It's been a good year for me and my knees. In about August 2010, I reached the point where not only was the knee pain that forced me to quit my job in April 2008 gone, but also I was back to racing my bike up hills with guys 20 years younger than me -- and most of the time, I was beating them.

Sweet.

So take care all. Keep your knees warm. Try to enjoy Christmas. If you're frustrated by your physical therapy, by your doctors, by yo-yo'ing back and forth and never really feeling like you're getting anywhere, there is a better way out there. That's what I discovered, the hard way, and why I wrote "Saving My Knees."

Blessings to you all.

3 comments:

  1. I've just found your blog & tonight will order your book.

    This blog is a revelation & has given me new hope after being on the dumb medical PFS round-a-bout for 10 months.

    My story is so similar to yours, it is amazing. I've been doing triathlons for 20+ years, long course triathlons the last 5, how the Hell could my quads be weak - I ride up to 250kms per week for Christ sake!

    In April, my L medial meniscus tore badly on a little run, had to have a chunk removed because it was catching & damaging the femur cartilage. From there, both knees went downhill with identical symptoms to yours - aching/stiff/burning/prickling knees, sore sitting at work etc etc.

    MRIs showed 'high grade chondromalacia' in R knee, a little in the the left. Physios went for all the usual crap you mention, plus fix hips/glutes. Sports Drs wanted to do surgery - drill holes in back of kneecaps, platelette injections/lateral release of ITB because kneecaps had a lateral tilt.

    Thankfully, alarm bells were ringing & I did not want more surgery (and my original OS who did the meniscus agreed more surgery was not the answer). So I started my search for a more conservative approach, and ended up here thankfully! Now I have some clues to follow.

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  2. Hello! Just found your blog as well and I'm looking forward to making my way through it. I am NOT a triathalon-type. Just a regular, rather plump mom/Gigi who found herself suddenly off her feet due to a stress fracture in one foot and a knee injury of the other leg.

    This led me to discover that I have no cartilage in said knee. I'll be starting physical therapy next week, but in the meantime I began researching and found you. I'm looking forward to learning all I can and getting better than ever.

    Thank you!

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  3. Welcome, and thanks for dropping in. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this, but that "rather plump" part of your descriptor could be an obstacle to healing. There's lots -- and I mean LOTS -- of evidence that excess weight highly correlates to knee pain. If you do a search on this blog for "overweight" you'll find lots of links to posts. Good luck getting better; I know it's hard. Cheers!

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