We're almost at the end of another year!
First, a quick note about Facebook: If you want to message me there, or friend me there, I wouldn't advise it. I'm trying to get off Facebook as much as possible and rarely use it.
An incident last weekend is one reason why. I clicked a link from a long-ago friend, and it turned out to be a virus. My life is already busy enough without having to fend off Facebook viruses.
Most friend requests, I ignore. Virtually all messages, I ignore. If you want to talk to me ... well, there's this blog, and that's probably the best way.
Happy holidays! We're almost at Christmas, and let me ask you: what are YOU grateful for as this year comes to an end? Me, I'm so happy to have knee pain way behind me in the rearview mirror. It's just a fast-receding speck, and I'm delighted about that.
I'm not so cocky as to think I'll never have knee pain again ... maybe someday ... but this time, I feel like I'm prepared, if I do face that demon again.
So once again: what are you grateful for, in your knee pain battle? No need to say "this blog." I appreciate such sentiments, but I'm really not that needy. 😃
And finally, the good cheer: I was looking through the comments, deleting the junk commercial messages, and I came upon a comment from someone I would never recognize in person, as I've never met her, but that I have a soft spot for nevertheless.
She was here in the early days of this blog, and I admire her courage and perseverance and spirit. I really feel like a slacker compared to her, considering what she has been through. She goes by the moniker "Knee Pain," and she made this comment a week or so ago:
My back story is that I had a very, very long struggle with debilitating knee pain. Previously it was so bad I could sometimes barely walk -- even to the point of using a wheelchair on multiple occasions. But, now my knee is doing so well that I can hike for miles! I can road bike up hills! I can do open water swimming for over a mile. I can do swing dancing and rotary waltzing. In 2020 I started a new hobby of backpacking which you can imagine is very hard on knees, but, I can do it. It's amazing.
Love it! Knee Pain, keep sharing your message of hope and triumph! Everyone else: never give up!
Best,
Richard
I am thankful for little bits of progress here and there that produce hope.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful for Dr Scott Dye not focusing on lining his own pockets with unnecessary knee surgeries and exposing the (at best) lazy (at worst) unethical behaviour within his own orthopedic profession regarding 'PFPS'.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am grateful that my bad knee (the right knee) seems to be 100% fine!
ReplyDeleteI continue to visit this blog from time to time because I hope that people can feel encouraged to hear from people who have recovered. It's so important to keep trying -- and yet I know it's so hard (and expensive!) to try something without knowing if it will actually help or not. I think the mental/emotional side of all this (pain -> recover --> try again --> progress --> hope --> setback--> Repeat) is actually pretty big. It's mentally and emotionally hard to go through these rounds of pain, progress and setbacks....and yet then pick yourself up AGAIN and try AGAIN without any guarantee that it's going to work. But, you have to hope that it is going to work this time. And be patient. It's also very hard to be patient and to not over-do-it and cause a set-back. I think the "learning to be patient" aspect is a skill-set all to itself!
I'm grateful that my knee is doing so well now... BUT....I don't ever want to become complacent and think the pain won't come back if I stop exercising. So, I have kept my cane out as a visual reminder to not take my current knee health for granted! I need to keep on moving!
Now in 2021 my left knee has started to grumble -- probably from all the years of extra burden my left knee had to take to compensate for the bad right knee. However, my left knee is only occasionally giving me problems and I'm taking steps to address it with leg exercises and swimming. So, I'm hopeful that I can nip this in the bud before it becomes a big problem. And... I'm grateful that I DO have a plan for how to address it and that I'm taking action NOW.
Best wishes to everyone as we close out 2021 and enter 2022.
Kneepain: What did you do for recovery? I followed the Saving My Knees book for 2 years and thought I was back to good health this summer. I lunged too low one day and re-aggravated both knee (PFPS) worse than ever before.
DeleteAfter 6 months now of muscle focused PT on hamstrings, now back and core, I am very concerned regarding any form of future mobility. Even walking and standing more than 2 hours a day is difficult. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks JH
I have found that when I'm stuck I have to do something different. PT help me for a while and then it wasn't so I stopped for a while. It seemed to just keep them irritated. Eventually I started with a different therapist and it was better but eventually two times per week clearly was making me miserable. I dropped to 1 time per week and on the other days I do some of the exercises on my own which is much less intense. Again I've seen a little bit of progress with the change.
DeleteI literally feel your pain. I am sorry you are going through this.
Hi JH. Sorry to hear you have had such a severe set-back. Unfortunately, that has happened to me many many times. I refer to the worst ones "Catastrophic Setbacks." :-(
ReplyDeleteAnd yet... here I am doing so well now! And I'm so grateful.
In terms of my own recovery, the thing that made all the difference for me was water movement. This is NOT the same as "swimming." Swimming involving legs and that was just too much pressure on my knees. Instead, I did gentle water movement following a book for people with injuries. There was a section for people with bad knees.) Over time I was able to do more and move .....and then finally I was able to Full-on Swim! And then i started getting bolder and started doing activities on land. I would monitor my knees closely.
For example, I really wanted to go swing dancing!! I started slow. Built up confidence. After I built up the ability to go swing dancing multiple nights per week, I noticed that my knee was sending me little warning signs. ACK! I backed-off and decided that my MAX for swing dancing is just 2 times per week -- and never 2 days in a row.
That said... for some of my catastrophic relapses, I had NO WARNING! One day I was doing so well.... then the next I couldn't bend my knee without severe pain. And it took me so so so so long to recover.)
It's been a battle for me to weigh fear-of-knee-setback against i-want-to-do-fun-and-active-stuff! I want to get out there and do SO many things!! But... also I do not want a set-back! Is it worth it to risk being able to do daily life activities without pain (i.e., walk in the grocery store, walk from car to a table at a restaurant, do chores around the house, walk through an airport, stroll through a museum, walk up stairs, walk down stairs, walk around the block)? Should I be happy enough with those activities? But... I wasn't. I kept slowly trying activities that I wanted to do and also to do my best effort to not have a knee relapse.
Anyway, I'm getting to a point where I am not as fearful that I'll have a setback. BUT.... since i had an unfortunate history of set-backs....My main thing now is to stay active regularly and not get complacent. I still think the activity of swimming is key for me. (essentially light load / high rep).
For more about my story and my recovery, Richard did a "write up" on me in Jan 2019! Wow! I was so surprised and amazed! Here is the link if you want to read it.
https://savingmyknees.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-success-story-of-overcoming-knee-pain.html?m=1
Thank you very much!
ReplyDelete