Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Second Edition of Saving My Knees Is Out!

Here it is, with a new cover, new preface and five additional short chapters. Putting it together was more of an effort than I expected. Pardon me while I take a victory lap!

The first time, I formatted the book myself. It’s definitely doable, but tedious. I wrote out the steps last time, and on reviewing the process, I thought, “Eh, I’d rather skip this if I can find someone to do it for a good price.”

Did I ever. One of my luckier moments this summer was finding Allen of eB Format. He was responsive, intelligent, reasonably priced (less than $100) and did a nice job. He improved a few things without my asking. I said I’d mention his fine work on the blog, and his website’s here if anyone’s interested.

Now on to the book:

In the second edition, at the end I tried to answer a few criticisms that have surfaced – not that I’m really thin-skinned or anything, but for instance, when someone reads your book and likes it but can’t tell what you did to heal – well, that’s probably a failure of the writing or organization. By the way, if it’s unclear to anyone reading right now, I healed with high-repetition, low-load exercise, which for me was a very structured program of walking.

No fancy stretches, no miracle shoes, etc. Walking your way to health sounds simple, but there was a lot more to my story than that, which is what led to an entire book. I wanted to tell a story: of what happened to my knees, and how I got through it.

Which brings me to a second criticism: It would be a fine book, some readers have opined, if you could skip over the non-knee bits here and there, such as when, during my summer devoted to recovery, everything started going wrong, including my discovery of mold on my camera lenses. I completely understand this. Most people with knee pain just want answers. What do I do, what works, what doesn’t?

I conceived of this book as something different though: a story, with a central character (me) and a progression through the stages of knee pain, the experiments with things that didn’t work, and then the discoveries that led to healing.

Also, I thought it was useful to give readers an idea of what kind of person I am (competitive, type A, active, with a relatively injury-free history). That does figure into how I got into such a mess, and was related to the challenges of getting out. And the camera lens mold turned out to be part of a larger crapfest of a summer, and that turned out to be important too, because you will go through times like that when you have knee pain – every little bad thing that happens will seem like more grief dumped on you, and you’ll think that nothing will ever get better.

So there you have it. I also did the update because I wanted to include a chapter on Scott Dye and his “envelope of function” framework. I knew a little about Dye while writing the original book, but there was much, much more I only found out about later. I wish he could’ve been part of the first edition.

For first-time visitors wondering whether it’s worth their time and money: check out the blog. Poke around some. All the content here is free. If you like what you find, and want to find out the full story – well, Saving My Knees is it.

Cheers!

Update: I want to be clear that, if you bought the first edition, I'm not trying to suggest you buy the second too! That seems absurd. What's in the additional chapters (which are generally short) can be found around the blog (just do a search for "Scott Dye" for example; I talk about him in one of the add-on chapters). I will ask Amazon if people who bought the first can be automatically upgraded to the second, but I'm not optimistic Amazon will be able to do this.

Second Update: I reached out to Amazon. I was told that readers who bought the first edition could contact Kindle customer care, and someone there could help them download the latest version. A reader below in the comment section reports that this did work. Here are the url's Amazon gave me:
www.amazon.com/clicktocall
www.amazon.com/clicktochat

14 comments:

  1. Hi Richard,
    Not sure if you're aware of it or not, but people who purchased your original book on Amazon, are prevented from purchasing the 2nd edition as Amazon states the user has already purchased the book. There is no way to access the 2nd edition without having to set up an entirely new Amazon account. Also, the content doesn't automatically update to the 2nd edition, so it appears that a 2nd purchase IS required, but Amazon won't let you buy it bc it's already been bought with the original...

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    1. I'm going to update the post to address this. If you bought the first edition, I think that's enough! No need to buy the second. The additional chapters aren't very long -- the longest is the one on Scott Dye, and you can find me talking about him right here on the blog. Let me ask Amazon about whether people who bought the first edition can automatically be upgraded to the second. I'm fine with that, but not sure if Amazon has the technology in place to do so.

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    2. Just to say I contacted Amazon via the help/feedback link from kindle and they pushed the second edition to my account to replace the first edition so it worked for me :o)

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    3. Excellent. Pleased to hear this. So apparently it does work -- I was doubtful, but happy to be wrong.

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  2. Victory lap well deserved!
    It is impressive how you figured out a lot of the principles independently. For example the delayed onset of symptoms. I dug out Dye's article where he cites research about a delayed response of 6-24 hours in cytokines' build up for the flare ups (Kimball ES: Cytokines and inflammation. Boca Raton, CRC Press,1991.)

    However, I think this is a moderate estimation. Before one figures out the true EoF (if s/he is lucky to learn about it at all), there could be overlapping flare ups that can enter into a closed loop enhancing and feeding on each other indefinitely. And for this reason one cannot readily calculate such direct correlations in symptoms. That is why complete offloading might be needed for quite some time. To cut the Gordian knot it may be necessary to let at least some of the bad karma burn itself out without accumulating new one so to speak. Then it is more easy to get to a more neutral position where the 24 hours rule can more readily be observed and implemented so a true healing process can be launched.

    Another point to share from my experience. During my nightmare times and even now, I am more concerned about relaxing the muscles rather than strengthening them. This muscle strengthening approach to all knee pain is beyond absurd. It is very good to have strong muscles but with an ongoing inflammation I found that the muscles actually shut down so it is idiotic to try to strengthen something that is already tense. Relaxing and balancing the tight muscles is a priority. Muscle strength comes second at least for me. There could be cases where people have other needs. You have to really find a way to listen to your knees to get better. After more than a year, I find myself still a learning amateur in how to decipher the language the joints are speaking. Especially now that healing becomes faster, it is so easy to make stupid mistakes by rushing the process.

    S.

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    1. Yes Sveto. Following the long post in the next thread where the poster got good results by stretching the psoas muscles, I'm giving that a try also to see if I can get additional improvement. Tight hip flexors etc. are well known in triathletes as a cause of other problems, and I never stretched mine very well for decades. So now I'm trying to get a bit religious about it and see if it makes a difference.

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    2. I hope it helps you, mate! At the right time for my legs, the right guy applied acupressure at various spots and released a lot of garbage alongside a number of muscles just for several short 15 min sessions. Also it made me much more aware of the tight problematic areas I need to pay attention to. Naturally, it wasn't "the cure" despite his claims. But I do not care what other people believe as long as I can feel it works for me even a tiny bit. So he gave me a very bonus that I gladly took on board.

      S.

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    3. Sveto, a quick update. Stretching the psoas (by lying on the arm of the couch, dropping one leg toward the floor, pulling the other bent toward the chest, sometimes getting my wife to stand on the foot to push it down further to the floor to get a better stretch) definitely helps relieve that patella chondro pain I still get. You can get a more intense stretch by breathing in deeply and holding breath. I do each side every day 2x for about 20-30secs. I'm also finding the low dose aspirin seems to be helping with the residual PFPS symptoms (burning/stiffness) I have. Using my knees quite hard for up to 2hrs 4-5 days/week now (road/mtb cycling, gym work, a little running up to 30mins).

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  3. Well done Richard for your second edition. I found your book incredibly helpful. I posted earlier in the year, pretty much miserable, exhausted, defeated. Thanks to TriAgains suggestion I got back in the pool with ankles tied. Thanks to others for their words of encouragement. I also went back through all the posts and comments - took a while! I think it was cartilagerepairman who mentioned lorimer Mosleys ted talk. I took a look and got a lot from it. Bottom line - the meaning you give to pain is what qualifies your attitude to your body, your recovery etc. His talk is worth a watch to see how to give any talk, very funny guy. Anyhow I don't know when I posted, I'm guessing March of this year but I want to say I am in such a better place. I am dealing with my pain in a much more compassionate way and have no doubt I'll make a full recovery. Patience, positive attitude, taking pressure and urgency off. Like Richard I was a type A personality and my scans showed no damage whatsoever. What I did discover was how much tension I was carrying in the rest of my body and my knees were paying the price. I'm tired right me so just a short comment of hope because I know how despairing it can be. Some of the best resources I have found to deal with the pain so that I can work with rather than against my body are Ingrid Baccis book Effortless Pain Relief, Carol Lees book Crooked Angels, Alexander technique lessons to see undisputed key how much tension i am carrying, meditation retracts, Jon kabat zinnias yoga. Ingrid bacci also does phone consults and would very quick telling you if you fit into the stress related knee pain category or not. Wishing everyone well. I'll post back another time, just wanted to put that info out there as another voice of hope. The success stories are so v important. Thanks Richard for the platform and keeping the forum alive. Ellie x

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  4. Congratulations on your second edition, Richard!

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  5. Richard,

    I feel the need to thank you. For your time. For your effort. For doing the work that in turn encourages people like me to get off their butts and do something about their problem. I’m 33 a husband a father of a 2.5 year old with one on the way. I’m a speech language pathologist at a middle school - I walk a lot (and thanks to your research I continue to walk to retrieve students instead of resting my knees at my desk the whole day). I’m active. I’m a mountain biker who was convinced he needed to do beach body insanity alongside running in order to beat strava times up the hills. About 6 months ago my knee began to hurt. 5 months later I was diagnosed with chondramalacia in my left knee. A week later my right knee began having similar pain. I was depressed. No more biking. No more jumping on the trampoline with my kid. Would I be able to run around the house with them? What about sports? I’m a swimmer and it hurt to kick - I bought a buoy for my legs which helped but this led to shoulder pain. Tried working my upper body with weights (but just like you) pain followed. Desperate I turned to amazon to see if I could find a book to help me through this. I found yours. I can’t believe how similar our journeys have been. Achilles Tendonitis followed by chondramalacia followed by tinnitus in me ears. I was/am a mess. Your story has given me hope AND I’m only 67% or the way done (according to kindle). My wife described me as the dark cloud that brought misery everywhere I went and my coworkers continued to ask me why I was always so sad. Your book brought me hope which has helped restore happiness. I can enjoy my family more. My knees aren’t “better” yet but they will get there... thank you and sorry for any typos!

    Bobby

    Ps- not sure if you answer my following question in the book or not but — did you ever start cycling again?

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    1. Yup, my story very similar to yours Bobby. I'm a lot better and riding a fair bit again now, though not nearly as much as I used to. Knees not 100%, but much improved.

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    2. What a great comment to read, Bobby. Thanks. Every so often I forget why I wrote the book -- my knee pain days are fast receding (yes!), and that entire experience feels like some distant nightmare. Glad to have it in the past.

      Yes, there can be lots of weird stuff the doctors don't prepare you for. As I've mentioned on this blog, at times it felt like I had a poltergeist loose in my body, and it would just pop up in different joints. I asked a doctor if my knee pain could be related to the elbow tendinitis I developed. He said no. I strongly believe he was wrong.

      Do I cycle now? Do I ever! I did 57 miles today at a hard pace (another rider and I jumped in with a fast group). It feels great to get out on the bike. And my knees feel fine afterwards. Just be patient. It can take a while to heal. TriAgain will attest to that; he's had a longer journey than mine. Cheers.

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    3. Thanks guys... knowing there’s a light somewhere down the line helps :)

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