There were a lot of comments after the last post I made. That's great! I'm sure a lot of you are benefiting more from talking with each other than listening to me, as my bad knee experience fades from memory.
One comment struck me as especially interesting, because "Lindsay" listed some things that have helped her. What got me thinking was what she put near the top of the list:
2. Having time in a day where I do not research cartilage/chondromalacia/patient forums etc.
3. Exploring new interests: photography/more reading/films/kayaking
4. Not telling friends too much about my condition ...
I could definitely relate to this. When I had bad knees, I was scouring the internet constantly, looking for advice, for research, for anything I could learn from. If someone wrote a 20-page paper on "the effects of pickle juice on chondromalacia," I probably would have read every single word.
As you all know, I followed my knee progress, during my recovery, with an uncommon obsession. When people asked me casually at work, "How are your knees?", I would answer them as if they really wanted to know, when usually they were just making the equivalent of small talk.
After a while, I figured out I had become a "Knee Bore" and started to limit my responses so as not to drive away my colleagues. Who wants to chat with a guy who's always yapping on about his knees, and his latest ideas for how to heal them?
I also realized, after I wrote my book, that I may have done some harm along with some good. A knee journal was a great idea for me, and I do believe in carefully listening to one's knees, but ...
At some point, you do have to take a deep breath. And exhale. And relax. And try not to think about your knees every hour of the day. My book tends to encourage the idea that you have to be scribbling notes about your knees and running experiments on them all the time.
So, to address that, I want to point out that I found meditation useful. I'm not a natural meditator, so it didn't really come naturally to me, but I could feel the benefits.
Obsessing over your knees can be bad, if for no other reason, because healing takes so long. If you're just sitting around all the time, wondering about your knees, thinking about your knees, you're doing the equivalent of standing in a room watching paint dry.
Anyway, I thought it was worthwhile to give a thumbs up to this idea of exploring new interests. Try to take your mind off your knees for a while. Be knee conscious, but try not to be too knee obsessive.
I think it's a good distinction. 😊 (Boy, the blogger emojis are really bad, huh?)
Knee conscious but not obsessive is true. It's another difficult balance.
ReplyDeleteI find I have to do second order thinking all the time, eg whilst I could do this, what are the possibilities of me making things worse and is there a better alternative. The level of self discipline is high and so self compassion also becomes important if you make the wrong decision.
The only other thing which is helpful is putting distance between a stimulus and response; for example you see a cyclist go past, and don't allow yourself to spiral into self-pity or see a runner/tennis player etc etc. Difficult.
Many people keep recommending meditation to me. I guess it's grounding. Being in nature helps also.
I've probably read the article on pickle juice and chondromalacia ;-)
It is hard not to think about it all the time when they hurt all the time and, for me, are causing me to not be able to teach right now or walk outside. Yet it's been 22 mos and I'm surviving. But Lindsay, your stimulus/response thing got my attention. My beloved park, where I used to walk so much I've found is again making me sad with all the walkers and bikers...so I shall take a break on park-going for a bit...as it does make me obsess more about what I have lost in my life. The progress is so incredibly slow...yet I believe in the body's ability to heal. I believe God made us that way.
DeleteI recommend meditation. I have taken up the habit again after a couple of years of pause. I don't use any meditation apps but I think they could be an easy way to start. Meditation helps with my knee-related anxiety.
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of like "backing into" something like Dr John Sarno's thinking, but if you go down that path you might find that the issue itself is being caused, or at least exacerbated/continued by this kind of obsessive thinking. Our mind is tricky and likes to try to distract us from things it thinks are greater threats.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel like I don't fit in here... because my knees were hurt by a dashboard in a car wreck...still I hope for more healing, and to maybe get off these crutches someday. Hard not to be obsessive with it...I just want to walk unassisted again someday.
ReplyDeletePlease don't give up Stephanie. I think there are many readers who have had other than overuse injuries. I have previously had problems with my fat pad that were caused by limited ROM in my ankle and now I'm actually dealing with pain under one patella due to a small accident this summer. I got hit by heavy metal plate directly to my patella when renovating.
DeleteHave you checked this site?
https://injuredathletestoolbox.com/
I find it so encouraging that she has gone through 10 surgeries to get rid of her knee problem and survived the whole ordeal.
Thank you so much....your post is so kind. I will definitely check that out.
DeleteI think you definitely do fit in here. You have injury to your patellofemoral joint which is similar to what many posters here experience. Whilst the mechanism of your injury was trauma rather than overuse- you are working on healing by natural means as well and that means all the principles eluded too in these posts. Also, this blog has many people going through the same frustrations.
ReplyDeleteThere would be further surgical options for you down the line also if your symptoms did not improve. Many avenues to explore.
Thank you for your encouragement Lindsay. It means a lot.
ReplyDeleteI did keep a knee progress journal for a while. I also developed my own knee pain / functionality scale from negative 10 to positive 10. Anything below a zero was a knee state in which it seemed like anything I did would cause a flare up. So, my goal was to just to heal enough to be at ZERO. Then from Zero i was in a good place to start carefully try to improve. I don't know if this pain scale would make sense to anyone else. but, it helped me at the time.
ReplyDeleteI also got different types of pains or aches in my knee, and I started giving them different names. There was Dragon which was the horrifying awful pain in a certain spot. But, there were other lesser pains in other spots. So, I starting giving the different pains different names. The main thing was to not do anything to get the Dragon pain.
I do think it was very helpful to develop interests in things that did not involve moving my knee. So... in this way.... i could still feel like I was living a full rich life. And I did.