How I cured my runners knee

Hi

My name is Ron. I came down with runners knee (Chondromalacia patella) about 5 years ago. When I realized I had it and it stopped me from running was about 3 years ago. This is my story of how I beat runners knee and my hope is that my story might help others with the same problem. Beware I am not good at writing and I am not a doctor so please bare with me as I stumble and try to get across what I did to fix my knee. Everyone has different limits and reasons why they have runners knee, below is my experience. It may not fit everyone.  I hope you can find something in here to help yourself though. 

 I am in my late fifties,  about 5'-10 and 155 lbs and have been running since my mid twenties. I am in pretty good shape for my age. I was running about 3 times a week at a  4 mile,  8 1/2 minute pace. Not a lot of distance or speed but I enjoyed it. I did not know at the time but I had runners knee while I was still running about 5 years ago. My knees would get achy after driving for long distances back then. I would get out of my car to gas up and the knees were stiff and achy. From what I believe now is the movie goer symptom. I'm not much for movies or TV so it was in the car I noticed it but did not know what it was or cared at the time. About 3 years ago I had to stop running due to my left knee pain. I stopped and researched my knee and self diagnosis myself with runners knee. I had pain climbing stairs and the movie goer symptom among other symptoms.

After diagnosing myself with runners knee I self confidently went on the Internet to find out what to do to fix it. After all this was not my first rodeo at fixing body ills over the Internet. Well I found out there's a lot of stuff out there on the subject misaligned feet, flat feet, weak thigh muscles, get arch supports, stretching, Q angle of the quadriceps, icing, leg raises, and so on. Well I iced, biked, leg raised, elliptical till the cows came home. There was a point where I thought I was getting better. So on a warm spring day with running jacket, pants and Ipod went for a 2 mile run. I had planned on a 3 mile but had to limp back one of the miles. I could hardly walk the next few days. I recovered in about 2 weeks time back to where I was at. It had been, 4-5 months since I stopped running. About this time some of the symptoms have changed some in the knee. I noticed that stubbing my toe or catching myself with that leg to keep from falling on my bad leg causes swelling in that knee for a period of days. I was getting depressed about the knee and finally succumbed to seeing a doctor.  The doctor told me what I knew but he gave me a prescription for physical therapy. So I am thinking yes finally I am going to get better having the experts fix me. I went into the therapy with a great attitude and expecting to much.

The first therapy appointment one of the therapists examined the knee and leg and said she did not see anything to unusual. After that first appointment the next ones were icing, ultrasound treatment, massaging, stretching and some knee bend exercises  This went on for about 3 months. I was not making any progress and I suggested seeing a specialist bone doctor. When I went in to see him he looked at my X rays and examined my feet and legs and said to stretch the calf's and take ibuprofen for pain and swelling if I wanted to run. He did not spend more than 5-7 minutes with me in the room. 

I decided to stop the therapy after that appointment and did the exercises and icing that I was doing in therapy. I did them religiously for 4-5 months. I was also biking and using the elliptical.  I was not getting anywhere. I was researching runners knee every night and driving my wife crazy with it, obsessed. It was consuming my life trying to fix my knee. I ran across the runners bible on line and saving my knees about the same time which was around January 2011. One was a writer who had a bad case of runners knee, $10 Kindle book "Saving my knees" and a physical therapist which has clients that do and I think has cured some of them with runners knee" The runners knee bible",about a  $70 down loadable PDF book. I bought the runners knee bible and started doing the exercises using mainly my total gym and quad contractions per instructions. I stuck with it for a couple of months and did not see any results(I may have not given it long enough). I decided to buy the Saving my knees book, $10 I figured what do I have to lose, $10 I guess. I did that in March of 2011.

I read the Kindle book in a short time. I would get on my stationary bike and read the book while I was cycling. The writer Richard Bedard paints a great entertaining picture of what he went through during his ordeal with runners knee. He also comments on knee studies and comes up with a conclusion that repetitive movement heals the knees and he keeps a log on his knees why some  days are better than others. Much more than that though. If you have runners knee it is a must read as far as I am concerned. I owe my cure to that kindle book, no question about it.

What Richard done  for the most part is walk to cure his knee, so I started walking every night after work with our dog about 2 miles. I also was biking and walking up steep hills in the area. I did this for about a year or so. During this time I had a lot of set backs. There is a goldie locks zone for healing according to the runners bible. To little won't heal, to much will damage and will set you back. The worse the knee the smaller the goldie locks zone according to the book. So it would appear the gains in the beginning are small and measured. My goldie locks zone was pretty small in the beginning. I have had a lot of set backs due to over doing it. I have been called a over achiever by my physical therapist when I was going there. The walking opened up my goldie locks zone very slowly and my knee was getting better just from walking. I was encouraged but also frustrated by how slow it was going. Richard Bedard said I believe in the book, healing the knee is slower than watching paint dry. Well in my opinion it is much slower. I got better slowly and in the spring of 2012 started a little running lightly up hills. I could not run on a flat surface, if I did the knee would swell(heel striking). I did not think to much about why that was at the time. My knee would make cracking noises when the swelling was present. It was a good indicator of swelling for me. It usually took 4-7 days to get back to normal after over doing it to get the swelling to go away. I also noticed and per Richard's book damage to my knee and good things I did for my knee did not surface until the next day. Either I had swelling or a good feeling. So I had to figure out what caused what by retracing my steps the day before. A knee log is a great idea. Unfortunately for me I was not that structured. I became really good at being aware of where my limits were. But still set myself back many times. 

So here I am at a tipping point with my knee but did not realize it at the time. We had planned on moving my daughter into a rental house in September 2011. My knee is a long way from being right and I am thinking this move in is going to set me back in the knee department. We went to move her in and her room is on the second story and as most girls she has a lot of stuff. During the move in I am trying to be careful with the knee. It was  a hot day and I was sweating and my quads we burning going up the stairs with furniture and boxes filled to the brim. On the trip home I am dreading the set back and swelling in the knee I am going to have the next day. The next day came and to my surprise my knee felt better than it had in years. I became convinced that using the quads and surrounding knee muscles on the stairs it produced some sort of a healing mechanism for the knees.  So I started doing squats, lunges  and any other exercises to work the knees. What I aimed for was anywhere from 30 reps to 200 reps. I think the point of healing for me was when the knee muscles would burn from exhaustion.  I did not use or use very little weights with the knee exercises. Mainly my body weight. I have a suspicion the burning muscles are what accelerated the healing process in my knees. If done right I would feel a warming, vibration if you will in the knees after a good work out. A word of caution.These exercises for me could have only be done after walking and healing the knee first. And even then at the time I had limits on how much I could do. As time went on it seemed like the limits were no longer there I could do as many as I wanted within my pain threshold.

On the walks with the dog I started running slowly on my forefeet for short periods. A block or so at first. I got to the point where the dog was having a hard time after I worked up to 3 miles (she's 14 years old). So I started going solo with my Ipod and running gear. It felt great. 
I am convinced heel striking helped lead to my runners knee so I bought a pair of  Vibram five fingers barefoot shoes (VFF). I started running in those and was loving it. Well my feet were weak and I suffered a stress fracture of one of my metatarsals in my foot. The doctor said 6 weeks off, it took about 12 weeks. Again I started slowly walking and doing short runs again with our dog.
Well I was back running and cross country skiing, one of the two every night. At work I had some big projects going on and was sitting for long periods. Guess what, what caused my runners knee in the first place was coming back again. Sitting for long periods and then beating the knees the same day. Its what got me in trouble the first time! Dang it!  My left knee started swelling and cracking again so I started by walking again and backed off running and skiing. The knee is getting better and I am again running short distances with the dog and I am close to going solo on my runs.

In short my keys to healing my knee. 
1.) DO NOT SIT FOR LONG PERIODS 30 minutes I would think. Get up and move around every so often the more the better its like medicine for the knee.
2.)WALKING 45 minutes or more daily.
3.) When READY knee exercises (to soon can set you back), low load high reps. By using chairs you can even use less than body weight to exercise the knees.
4.) Short runs and gradually increasing them.
5.) Patience and perseverance. It may be a year or longer.
6.) Being obsessed or highly aware of the affected knee. (a log is a great idea)
7.) When healed keep doing what cured you or else find yourself back where you started.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

Ron

PS Forefoot running is the natural running method and I think the best for the knee. The following link is of a runner that cured his runners knee by accident by running on his forefeet. Fun to read too. http://www.running-down.com/2010/01/runners-knee-cured-after-20-years.html there is 4 parts to this blog.