Another Knee Update

Ssoooooo I had an entire “Day in the Life” post planned for today and then last night, right around my bedtime, I realized it disappeared. Or I accidentally deleted it. Woops.

So I will work on that this weekend and give you an update on my knee for today instead.

It’s been over a month since I originally hurt my knee, 3 weeks since my initial ortho appointment and a week since my MRI, which came back completely normal. I have seen no improvement in my knee pain despite doing everything my doctor recommended and that has been so frustrating. I am in pain all the time, and I’m having trouble sleeping. No bueno.

I chatted with the doctor today about everything that had been going on. He doesn’t seem to think it is a plica issue anymore, given that it hasn’t improved, and thinks there might be some instability in my knee instead related to my patella. We talked about doing PT to strengthen my leg muscles to help with this.

I brought up how I had read about minimalist shoes, and specifically that the article discussed how Nike Frees don’t provide enough support. He checked out the pronation of my feet and agreed that the lack of support may be contributing to my issues. He actually noted that my pronation is worse on my left foot, which is the same side of my knee pain. I over pronate and wear supportive running shoes, but it honestly never occurred to me that my everyday shoes should also offer more support. I never even wore “everyday tennis shoes” until I got my new job at the hospital.

He recommended I get some arch supports for the Frees to see if that helps (process of elimination) but I decided I’m just going to wear my running shoes for now. I have worn Brooks Adrenaline shoes for running for the past 8 years, so I *know* if my knee keeps hurting that it’s not the shoes.

So here’s the plan moving forward: I’m going to ditch my Nike Frees for now and switch back to my Brooks. If the knee pain doesn’t improve in the next 2 weeks then I’m going to go to PT for 6 weeks. My doctor recommended swimming and said I could also do yoga. I officially cancelled my old gym membership, and I’m going to join the Y and swim. I tried to pretty please ask him if I could ride my bike but you can guess what the answer was to that one

I feel pretty good about this plan and I’m hopeful things will start to improve when I switch shoes. We’ll see!

Have a great weekend!