I was out doing my twice-a-day walk recently and a thought struck me, as I kicked a rock out of the way.
If you found a rock, and put it outside, and took a close-up photo of the rock once a month for ten years, you would have 120 photos, and would probably arrive at an interesting conclusion:
Rocks don't change over time. The rock in the first photo would look identical to the rock in the last.
But we know that rocks do indeed change over time. It's just that it takes a long time, usually, for visible changes in a rock to appear. Most don't look any different after 10 years, or even 100 years.
Similarly, healing from chronic knee pain can be maddening, because it's so slow. On any given day, it can seem that there's been no progress.
In fact, in a way, it's worse than watching a rock, waiting for some change to occur. With a bad knee, you will have good days and bad days and in-between days, and you'll feel like you're going forward and then sliding back a few days later. In the end, you may feel so confused you want to give up.
That's why, as we approach the new year, I think the best thing many knee pain sufferers can do is adopt an attitude of patience. Healing is usually not quick. Go into your knee rehabilitation program with that mindset, and you can only be surprised pleasantly if healing is faster than expected.
But if you go into your program thinking, "I can fix this in a few weeks," you risk being so frustrated that you lose hope.
So, I'm wishing everyone out there with knee pain some patience in 2021. Good things can happen. Just look at the many success stories on this blog (there was just one posted in the comment section last week).
But patience is often necessary. And that patience will be tested severely, so be prepared for that too.
I'm declaring my knees 100% fixed now from the dreaded PFPS (read loss of tissue homeostasis as defined by Dr Scott Dye).
ReplyDeleteTook 8 years & 6 months!
Hi Tri Again, i have that. May i ask how you fixed them please? Would do anything to fix mine
ReplyDeleteWell, the first thing I would say is that PFPS is a catch-all phrase used by 'experts' who can't really diagnose the cause of your anterior knee pain.
DeleteSo I prefer not to call it PFPS but loss of tissue homeostasis which in my case was chronic synovitis (the synovial lining in the knee becomes inflamed and very difficult to get on top of).
For me, the key was 5-6 mths on the anti-inflammatory Celebrex, stopping all running & cycling, the only aerobic activity I could do was swimming with an ankle strap & pull buoy so there was no kicking involved. Then much trail and error introducing core/hip/glute/leg strength exercises in the gym, but not much of a quad focus.
Also icing for 15-20mins each night & using a TENS machine when I had a bad pain flare.
It was 1 step forward, 2 steps back often, but ever so slowly I got there.
My knees are far from perfect - I have other aches & pains in them, but the dreaded burning/stiffness/loss of function from 'PFPS' (= synovitis) has finally gone.
But I can cycle hard for 1-2hrs, and was back to running until I developed ab/groin problems (due I think to changing my running style to protect my knees which put too much stress on adductors).
I think in conjunction with patience it helps to reflect on how far you've come. Perhaps you're still in pain now, but maybe it was worse last year or a few months ago. Perhaps you understand what triggers things more now than you did before and that's been a help. I find that doing so is great for the psyche.
ReplyDelete