Could I Have Healed My Knees Without Quitting My Job?

This question occasionally comes up. It was in the comments section recently, and since I’ve decided to try to flip as many comments into posts as possible, I thought, “Why not?”

So, could I have gotten better without quitting my job?

The honest answer, really, is I just don’t know. I’m doubtful. But maybe I could have. It would have been much harder certainly.

But let’s unpack this one for a moment. Because, partly what I was doing by leaving my job to try to heal my knees, was establishing “proof of concept.”

Remember: the only doctor I had faith in, while living in Hong Kong, had told me flat out that my knees would never get better. “Never” is a big, final-sounding, devastating word. I’m sure he saw himself as a truth teller, trying to dissuade a naive patient of notions he could still heal.

But I took this as a challenge, because I’m that kind of guy. Could my knees heal under the most optimal conditions – if I quit my job, devoted my life to what I was convinced it would take to get better? If I succeeded, it would show that at least some of those dire verdicts that doctors deliver to patients are unwarranted.

In the end, it was a great feeling of vindication when I realized I was right, and I was going to heal all the way. I felt as if I had won my life back.

But what about you? That’s really what you want to know, even though you’re asking about my knees. Can you heal without quitting your job?

And, my wishy-washy answer is, it probably depends. On how bad your knees are. On what you do at work to try to alleviate the stress of sitting. On your own inner fortitude and will to beat this thing.

I’m not advocating that everyone quit their job to fix their knees. It may work, but it may not. First, I’d try everything possible to heal my knees while staying employed (ahem, especially right now). Then, if you have to confront that hard decision, give it a lot of thought.

I also got this question:

Light flat gradual building up walking is the way to go. My question to Richard is how do you know what’s too much? As long as there is no pain during and after is that ok?

Well, no pain during and immediately after is, I would say, the minimum. But you also have to monitor for delayed onset symptoms, which can pop up a couple of days later. So this can be a very, very frustrating exercise, determining “how much is too much?”

So I would think of starting at a low base. What’s the easiest walking that doesn’t bother your knees at all? Then maybe cut that in half. One of the hardest lessons I learned early on was that my knees were much weaker than I thought, and I had to go more slowly than I expected.

Okay, that’s it for now. Take care everyone, and be careful. I know the warm weather is tempting all of us into going outside, but the world is not a completely safe place yet.