My thoughts on the patella

This one is for you JW!

To the left is a picture of the "knee" with all the ligaments, tendons, and bones involved. It really is an intricate piece of work this part of the body. You need the lateral and medial components to work in harmony in order to be pain free. Gain too much lateral muscle strength and OUCH. Have a medial tendon that is too tight? Double OUCH OUCH.

Why do I know so much about the knee? What is my fascination? Well I started to have some patella issues when I was in high school. No one could tell me what was going on. Many theories abound and I was forced to endure some pretty humiliating treatments. Like when the trainer thought I was accident prone and insisted I wear a giant pad on my knee so when I fell it wouldn't hurt. that was dead sexay! In fact, it got so bad that the trainer I became closest too told me how proud he was that I made it through four years of athletics because he had doubts on whether I would tolerate or give in to the pain. Unfortunately, when i went to the doctor, I naturally was not experiencing any pain so he could not help. He took an X-Ray and told me to come back if the pain returned. The crunching sounds whenever I bent my knee were pretty nauseating but with a variety of therapies I muscled through. Flash forward to junior year of college. I am diligently working out on an Elliptical when I feel a popping sensation on the left side of my left knee. Finished out the work out, limping slightly. The next day I wasn't so much walking as hobbling. My parents flew me home for spring break where I had my first encounter with Doc Feel Good. He manipulated my leg causing a snap in three separate locations. Unprepared for this he proceeded to do this 4 more times. Needless to say I left in worse condition. I did the PT thing, were I increased my knowledge cause I talked to the therapists about what was going on and they liked talking to me since I was one of the few who was under the age of 65. Did the surgery thing. Did PT at school for 2 weeks and then the pain increased again. Therapist sends me home for re-evaluation. Dr. Feel Good has no clue and claims my bod is "healing funny". Therapist does not like this and sends me for second opinion in DC. Second Doc Feel Good offers to break my leg, shave it done and screw it back in place. Ummmm, no thanks. Third Doc thinks its a ligament thing and offers to begin an injection therapy to rebuild some cartilage. Something like every three months for the rest of my life....I'm 22 at this point. Again no thanks. Once again the parentals fly me home and set me up with the Doc who fixed A Wash's arm back in the day. This man is a genius!!! He takes a look at what was done before, is appalled that I was told not to move for two weeks following surgery. We do the MRI, Xray thing again and schedule surgery. While he's in there he does the same surgery as before and finds that some how my Meniscus was knicked and the scar tissue seems to have shifted everything out of place. He also discovers that because of the damage my cartilage is in a stage two deterioration state. Meaning that by the age of 24 he has told me that I need to officially limit keeping my knees in a bent state, jumping and kneeling. Werd! However, he also says that since I'm a PT master, I do not need to go back I just must begin my self therapy withing two days of surgery. End result? I am a healed woman and only feel excruciating pain when it rains and not constantly.

So JW. You say that you have lateral pain when you ride the bike? You say you have a brace. My first question will be do you have the correct brace? This is important. My second question is the positioning of your feet when you pedal. You are a bit pigeon toed when you walk so you need to be sure the your feet are not bent inward on the pedal or this could cause pain. The third question is where the pain is exactly, depending on the answer to this there are exercises that you can do that may alleviate this pain. Hope that helps:)

Mo, I did not include Loki cause I was never such a big fan of his and I'm not sure where he wound up. However, I'm sure that Buddy and Samson are becoming very interesting friends.