My Physical Journey Toward Freedom

The struggle is real

I wanted to take a little time to elaborate on my physical journey the past few years. I think it’s important to look at where you’ve been to really understand how far you’ve come. The last few years have been TOUGH and yet I am so glad I went through them. I have come out a better person. Someone who is still growing and learning, but so much more hopeful about everything than I used to be.

In 2014 I was pretty committed to exercise. Mostly running and lifting some weights. I really thought the main way to stay in shape was to run. A lot of running! Let me say I haven’t always had the best knees, but it never slowed me down. I worked a lot of years on my feet in customer service and always had problems with my knees and back. I just attributed that to the long hours standing.

It wasn’t until the end of 2014 that something really began to change. I remember December of that year being the worst for me. The slow progression of knee pain soon escalated into an unbearable daily struggle. I could hardly get in and out of the car, climb stairs, get up and down out of any chair or bed, and sitting in just a regular position with legs at 90 degrees was the worst. I always had to have them extended out to relieve just a tiny bit of pain. Any small change was better than nothing.

My First mistake

At this point I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I fought it through the holidays. I went to see my family doctor in January and he recommended a sports medicine specialist he knew. This doctor had me take some X-Rays and immediately thought he knew exactly what was wrong. I was suffering from PatellaFemoral Pain Syndrome due to my kneecap not tracking correctly on my leg. He also said it looked like my knees were bone on bone.

Of course that’s kinda scary to hear your first time to a knee doctor when you’re only 31 years old. This doctor said I would need Physical Therapy to correct the problem and if that didn’t work that I’d be back to see him and need a major surgery to correct the problem. He said I didn’t need an MRI. This is the first of many of my reasons I say you should seek out multiple opinions.

Plan of action

So I went to Physical Therapy a few times a week for about three months. I went into this situation very weak because I couldn’t workout much at this point due to pain. I would collapse my knees together a lot when I did workout to give them the support they needed. This only made things worse as I would later find out. I began to get some muscle atrophy in my right thigh. This was the leg where the knee was actually a little worse.

While Physical Therapy did teach me some new alternative exercises and give me some strength back, I still wasn’t 100%. Not to mention their whole goal was to get me running again since they thought my knee only had one problem. Well it didn’t. In fact the whole notion of this later hurt me. I was told to continue working out as usual, incorporating some of these new exercises, but that I probably wouldn’t be able to do full squats or lunges again. I just couldn’t get there.

 

So I listened. I assumed all would be ok but I did think it was weird though that I still couldn’t do certain things while being told “You’re fixed!” I continued to run and workout. Only to find myself slowly creeping back into a miserable pain after a few months. Then found myself seeing another doctor 6 months later.

Here we go again

A new doctor, same knee issues, same pain. Except this time a little more educated. I had researched the heck out of what I was dealing with. Always reading new information about it or watching videos on Youtube to show other exercises I could do to fix it. This doctor gave me an MRI. Came to find out not only did I have a tracking issue, but now I also had a meniscus tear in my right knee.

His plan of action was surgery. But not just surgery to fix the meniscus, a surgery called Arthroscopic debridement of the PatellaFemoral Joint and lateral release. It would re-align the kneecap (also known as the patella) and they would have to cut into my Iliotibial band (also known as the IT band- thick band of fascia tissue that runs down the outside of your thigh) to release pressure. This would also be a separate surgery from fixing the meniscus tear which he said wouldn’t repair itself.

Feeling unsure

Something in me didn’t feel right about this either. I really felt there had to be another way. So I sought out another doctor. Another orthopedic surgeon. I can say now that I’m happy I did. After going through all this, still dealing with pain, I was ready to get some answers. After all, I never did understand the real reason all this was happening. Not one doctor gave me answers about that, until this third one.

I went through the usual X-Rays and exam. She studied all my notes and asked all the questions only to determine some of the same issues. I did have a tracking issue, but I also had patella tendinitis and arthritis in my knee. There were a lot of issues from scar tissue where the damage had already been done.

This doctor wanted to try Physical Therapy again as a first option. She did mention the major correction surgery, but said that was something we wanted to avoid since I was still so young. “Young” in terms of my knees shouldn’t be this bad for my age. That major surgery is pretty crazy since they literally break the bones in your leg and re-set them into the correct form.

New information

The new information came when she discovered I had a slight valgus knee which is due to the collapsing of the hip and knee joints. They also call this “knock knees.” It’s basically the opposite of being bow-legged. Even though mine was only a slight knock knee, not knowing this for far too long caused damage. Damage because I shouldn’t have been running and had I known earlier, may have been able to correct some of it.

This is my anatomy. The way I was built. My alignment on my whole leg is off. The lines of my leg aren’t straight up and down (from the hip to knee, and knee to ankle) like they should be. And this was the first time I was hearing this. The source of where all these knee issues began. Unfortunately it can only be fixed when you’re young and you’re legs are still able to be corrected. They can use a full leg brace that screws tighter very slowly to begin to re-align the legs. Once you’re an adult it becomes much harder. Surgery becomes the only route.

Obviously this surgery would be a last resort. I took all of this information in, feeling a bit overwhelmed, and took some time to figure out what I wanted to do.

You have to remember it is now summer of 2016 and I felt like I knew everything there was to know about the physical therapy for this issue. So I decided to stick it out on my own for awhile and see what I could do to get stronger and better on my own. I figured I had to just deal with it if I didn’t want surgery.

I fought hard over the next year or so. Educating myself, doing all I could to get stronger. That’s what I was told to do. Not to mention going on an internal journey of becoming more positive and finding ways to change my mindset for the better. If I could strengthen my inner thigh muscles it could help with the alignment of my knee at least. This whole time I was also taping my knee to relieve a little pain. Unfortunately I had to tape almost everyday. That becomes a problem if you want to wear a skirt or shorts. At the same time as educating myself I was also on an internal journey of changing my mindset and learning to stay positive. For more on how I did that check out my post on the power of positivity here.

One Last hope

Come January 2018 I wasn’t much better off. I decided to go back in to the third doctor. We decided on an MRI to make sure things were not worse since it had been a few years since the last one. This MRI came back showing I didn’t have a torn meniscus! The “un-healable” torn meniscus I had, actually repaired itself! I was shocked! That was great news. Check one thing off the list!

Now I had a little hope. Hope that maybe all the things I was doing was helping to heal something. I am so fascinated with how the body can heal itself, I could go on about that, but I digress. I will go into that in another post. So since they knew Physical Therapy may not give me any new information, I was set up with just one appointment. The physical therapist evaluated the strength in my legs and we set up a plan.

He wanted to try electro therapy since I had never done it before. I was willing to try anything. So they put just two electro-pads on your leg….in my case one on the top of my quad and one down near the inner knee muscle (VMO). Then you just plug the cords in from this little handheld device and begin. It felt strange in the beginning, like a numbing feeling. Of course you really feel it when its turned up, but it wasn’t unbearable.

He let me take it home and try it out over a month period of time. This along with my normal strength training and cardio was our last option. Of course cardio these days means just walking. I do incline sometimes or biking to change it up, but I still can’t do the elliptical. Learning what you can and can’t do is hard at first, but you learn to adapt.

Feeling stronger

Needless to say, the electrotherapy really helped on my physical journey. I tried it for just a few months and when I went back for a strength test, I was a lot stronger! In addition to that, I was able to stop taping my knee all the time and working out has been easier. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you’re dealing with any kind of chronic pain, you are happy to see improvement! This was HUGE for me.

I may not be out of the woods forever, but I will be so much stronger and able to do many things I couldn’t before. It gave me a lot of confidence back. Electrotherapy helped my muscles remember how to work. It changed everything. I do still have some tendinitis and arthritis that are more noticeable after a workout or being on my feet too long, so I just ice and rest. I am now just moving forward, excited to see what else I can do!

The thing I hope you takeaway from this is not to be afraid to say “NO” when something doesn’t feel right. If you want to look into alternative medicines or methods, do it. Get a second, third or fourth opinion. You are in control of you! I learned that educating yourself is the BEST thing you can do. And that gut feeling, you have that for a reason. Trust it.