I'm Sorry!!! I've been neglecting my blog. I know I said I would post every week at least but that obviously has not been happening. I will not make any promises anymore because I keep breaking them..
Anyways, to keep up with my blog when I do post, just put your email address in the bar on the right which says "Follow By Email" so that the posts will be emailed to you. I also have a bloglovin' page so if you have an account follow me on that. It just makes everything easier instead of having to constantly check back, though of course you can do that.
If you read the title of this post you already know what I'm going to talk about today! Just so you know this post isn't one of those annoying "I'm hurt, look at me, pictures of me being sad with my injured body part" type of post, they bother me so much.
This post is more about preventing the issue, symptoms, and ways of strengthening your knee again and where I am at in the healing process.
First things first, I have patellofemoral issues which is when your kneecap is not aligned properly. I don't have a really cool "I was charging at this guy when.." story that caused this. I got this from kneeling a lot, sitting on the back of my knees, putting one knee over the other when I stand, and sleeping with my knees facing each other. (Weird right?!?!)
Surprisingly I only have the issue in my left knee.
This is more common in girls 13-18 since we have weak hips. It doesn't help that I have horrible posture either.
I first started noticing pain on and off for about 2-3 weeks and just kind of let it go because it didn't hurt that bad. Then one day the pain was so unbearable that I couldn't walk and so I took a lot of pain medicine. My mom asked me if it was swollen and I said it wasn't. She took a look at it and of course I was wrong, it was extremely swollen and I just didn't want to believe it.
Here comes the "What do I do now?" part.
First I iced on and off for a good 2 weeks.
Then I bandaged my knee for another 2 weeks while still icing on and off.
After that I went to see a doctor, the swelling was completely gone at this point, and I found out what the problem was (kneecap issues). Right away I went to see my trainer and she told me that in order to help the problem I had to strengthen my hips and all the muscles around my knee so that they would put the kneecap back into place.
I was given workouts such as:
- stretching leg as far as it will go
- lifting legs with weights
- standing on one leg (much harder than it sounds)
- biking
- squatting sideways with an elastic band around your knees
- squatting (first with 2 legs than with one leg)
- elliptical (only when trainer or doctor says you are ready)
Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to run again. Right now I've been running up to a mile and I've even got some sprints in too which is really good. The hard part is concentrating on not letting your knees bend inwards. If you go to your athletic trainer have him/her put tape on your knee because it puts your kneecap back in place and makes it easier to run. Unfortunately the tape is not a long term solution because you need the muscles to be able to put the kneecap in place naturally.
Today I was able to run a mile and a lap!! I would have run more but I forgot to use my inhaler and I didn't want to get an asthma attack- it's seriously not fun. If you want to read about that click here.
Some other helpful tips are to drink milk every day as milk helps build more muscle. I personally don't like milk so I've just been trying to drink a glass of chocolate milk once a day as soon after exercise as possible.
The day I'm really looking forward to is friday because I'm going back to the doctor to see how my knee is doing. I'm hoping I can hurdle soon because to be honest I really don't like running- hurdling is my one and true love <3
The other reason I can't hurdle quite yet is because the knee I injured is the knee I land on, which puts a lot of pressure on it.
If your knee problems continue to persist try a different sport, running is legit the worst one. If the problem persists with my knee I won't be able to continue hurdling/running :(
Knee friendly sports include swimming and ice skating.
Sorry for not posting in a while and breaking all my promises- just keep checking back for more posts.
I also apologize for not putting any pictures in this post. I really didn't want any pictures of my knee on the blog.
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