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Unsure about knee pain severity

Posted , 4 users are following.

schmidtbag
schmidtbag

Back in winter of 2014-2015, my car was stuck in my driveway after some heavy snowfall.  I was getting pretty close to getting it out but just needed a little extra leverage, so while I was pressing the gas, I stuck my left foot out the doorway to do a little extra push.  It worked, at the price of injuring my knee.  The pain wasn't severe and after a few days the pain went away.  My injured leg didn't seem to function any worse than the good leg.  Since I don't exercise much during the winter, my leg got plenty of rest time.  By spring, I felt no pain at all (it would've gone away quicker if I didn't have to keep shoveling snow every other day).

Anyway fast forward a bit, any time I go for a walk that lasts longer than an hour, the pain comes back.  If I stop for about 10 minutes and start walking again, it feels much worse, to the point that it is almost crippling.  Hills and stairs seem to accelerate the problem, particularly when going down.  I only feel pain when extending my leg forward or when decelerating.  The pain is minimal when sitting or standing.  After about 2 days of not walking much, the pain goes away completely and I can walk normally again with no discernable difference to my other leg.

To my knowledge, the pain can be narrowed down to either the biceps femoris, or, the lateral collateral ligament.  I'm not really sure which it is.  There's a pretty small spot on the side of my knee I can press that expresses the soreness.

So - I can't tell how severe this injury is.  It's been over a year and it keeps "haunting" me, but my leg works just fine and the pain doesn't last long.

0 likes, 6 replies

6 Replies

  • schmidtbag
    schmidtbag

    Posted

    Oh yeah and not sure if it makes a difference, but I can go biking for about a full hour and feel no pain at all.
    • sandra07433
      sandra07433 schmidtbag

      Posted

      Hi, my knee sounds similar to yours prior to surgery, I have had a partial knee replacement, I am 49 now, but my knee had been playing up for quite a few years on and off, was Ok sitting and standing but would be painful if I walked for too long, became much worse for me after I had to have chemotherapy 4 years ago which seemed to accelerate the deterioration, by this time last year I could only walk for about 20 minutes before the pain became too severe, but could ride a bike without issue, since then it was becoming progressively worse and was giving way without warning on a regular basis, I had physio, x-ray and an Mri which showed it was bone on bone and only going to get worse so I made the decision to have the op now rather than wait until I was older.. You should definitely see a doctor and get some xrays and scans done to see what is going on. Good luck, hope you get it sorted.
  • Irish_Al
    Irish_Al schmidtbag

    Posted

    Hi Schmidtbag (SB for short, if that's OK?),

    SOME of your description of the pain sounds similar to mine, pre-op. I am 4.5 weeks after TKR op in Ireland.

    Getting worse when stopping and more pain going downwards is the same as I experienced.

    My advice is see a doctor, have an MRI scan or X-ray and have a specialist check it out.

    I was very similar at first and over 3-5 years got worse and worse (I expect most on this site have similar experiences).

    Age is obviously a factor? I am mid fifties, and if I go back far enough this probably started towards the end of my soccer and GAA playing days. The pain start getting worse 4-5 years ago, I was doing some hillwalking, no major pain for up to 10 km, but got worse and worse and in the last 3-6 months I couldn't walk more that a few hundred metres / yards before severe pain set in. Then pain start impacting work and sleep.

    So I am now post op, going through the recuperation process and looking forward to walking through the beautiful forests and hills of County Wicklow.

    I hope you're pain eases going forward, but regardless, I recommend you have a scan and go to the experts for professional advice.

    Hope this helps and take care,

    Alan

    PS. Snow sounds nice

  • schmidtbag
    schmidtbag

    Posted

    Thanks for the responses.

    I wasn't sure if age mattered so much for something like this.  I'm actually 26, so I do have an advantage regarding healing.  I don't have any other medical issues or necessary treatments either (I can see how something like chemotherapy could make this much harder to deal with).

    Seeing a doctor is the obvious choice, but if that was my only route I wouldn't have bothered coming here.  The pain is too short-lived and my leg is still works just fine, which leads me to believe that surgery may be avoidable.  But I don't know that for sure.  The weird part is how inconsistent the level of pain is.  So yesterday I probably spent a total of 4 hours walking and toward the end of the day, the pain was pretty strong. But this morning my knee is just a little bit sore and still walkable.  Other times, I could walk 3 hours in a day with tolerable pain, yet it hurts more the next 2 days than what I'm experiencing right now.

    The way I see it, I don't walk or stand much, but when I do, it involves most of my day.  Maybe the problem is I'm waiting too long between such events, and my ligaments and tendons aren't strengthened enough to keep up after recovering from the damage during that winter.  In other words, maybe I just need to go for half-hour to hour long walks on a more regular basis to strengthen them.

    I could be totally wrong, but I'm just throwing thoughts out there to see if what I'm saying is reasonable.

    • sandra07433
      sandra07433 schmidtbag

      Posted

      I think you need to get medical advice on what is wrong and then once you know that the professionals can give you your options on the correct way to deal with it, the correct sort of exercise is obviously good and maybe you need some physio to help.
  • juanita1963
    juanita1963 schmidtbag

    Posted

    In the begining of my leg injury i new i was in trouble. I suggest you getting the muscles aroind your knee strengthen by getting a mobile bike like you find in a gym. Using no tension bycicle for 2 mins twice a day for a week, than 3 min twice a day for a weeek than 4 mins twice day. Once you can do 5 mins. twice a day for a week add some strenght to you 5 min ride.

    If you dont feel improvement or you have pain like walking stairs than go to the doctor. You got a problem that needs to be address.

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