# Ouch gosh darn it Ouch!



## Thesemindz (Apr 19, 2004)

Ok. About a month and a half ago I hurt my knee in black belt class. I don't know when because it didn't really start to hurt for about two hours, but when I got home it started to swell and stiffen up. So, in the interests of proactive preventive health conscious medicince, I ignored the pain and went to bed without doing ANYTHING to try to make it better. Of course, when I woke up, my knee had swollen to the point that I couldn't quite straighten my leg and I could only barely put any pressure on it at all. Yay! I think the swelling stressed the tendons and connective tissues, and then when the swelling went down, which it did, the tissue was still damaged.

So of course, I decided to start taking care of it and I hobbled around like a mad man and refused to skip a single class, because of course, what the damaged joint needed was more intense stress applied to it. I know, squat thrusts, and jump kicks, that'll make it better. Ok, so it took about a month for the pain to subside to the point that I had more or less full use of my right leg, but now I still have a constant dull ache in my knee. I think part of the problem is that my alter ego is Pizza Man, and so I drive around all night and walk up and down stairs. That wouldn't be so bad, but four days of that and five days of kenpo each week is taking its toll. I think its just taking so long to heal because I haven't let it rest.

So here's my question. What can I do while I'm sitting naked in front of the television at three in the morning to help my knee heal. I've finally decided that I might do something, but I'm really not sure what to do. I know R I C E, but I think that's more for immediate care, what about an older injury? Heat? Cold? Compression? Massage? What should I do? Surely I'm not the first person here to hurt his knee. What did you do?

I've had long lasting injuries before, but they were in my shoulders, back, or chest. I could ignore that pain because I don't walk on my arms. I can ignore this too, but I really don't want to limp everywhere. Any suggestions?

-Rob


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## OULobo (Apr 20, 2004)

Thesemindz said:
			
		

> So here's my question. What can I do while I'm sitting naked in front of the television at three in the morning to help my knee heal. I've finally decided that I might do something, but I'm really not sure what to do. I know R I C E, but I think that's more for immediate care, what about an older injury? Heat? Cold? Compression? Massage? What should I do? Surely I'm not the first person here to hurt his knee. What did you do?
> 
> I've had long lasting injuries before, but they were in my shoulders, back, or chest. I could ignore that pain because I don't walk on my arms. I can ignore this too, but I really don't want to limp everywhere. Any suggestions?
> 
> -Rob



Heat is good for muscle tention and ache, cold and compression are good for swelling, message is good for cramps and tightness. What you could do is work on strengthening (not enlarging) the stablilizing muscles of the knee, especially the harder to isolate ones like the VMO. Do exercises that work active hip, ankle and leg muscles, basically the muscles that can take the stress off of your knee. Just a suggestion.


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## CanuckMA (Apr 20, 2004)

Stop training. GO SEE A DOCTOR. You might just have aggravated the injury beyond repair. Pain and swelling is an indication that something is wrong and needs to be looked at.


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## Shodan (Apr 20, 2004)

Hi- I blew out my right knee (ACL) on my second brown test back in 1996.  I had reconstructive surgery and rehabbed it for a year.  For the most part, it does fine, but I do have trouble at times and now am starting to have troubles with the left, good knee, from favoring the other one so much.  The things I have found to really help are the exercise bike, swimming and/or walking in the pool, lunges with a weighted medicine ball (as you lunge, you lift the ball straight up over your head with both hands- counter balance type of thing) and finally, sit on the floor with both legs out to the front of you, roll up a towel and put it under your knee then flex your leg muscles so as to push your knee down into the towel.  If you do a lot of kicks, try not to extend your knee straight while doing them.......I have a knee brace that prevents me from doing that- it won't let me straighten past 15 degrees.

  One more thing I heard recently via a friend who also had knee issues- his sports doctor said if he flexed his quads before settling into his stances (close kneels, wide kneels, etc), it would take some of the weight and pressure off of his knees and make the stances not as painful........seems to work some for me too.

  Hope some of that helps.  Happy training and good luck with your knee.....it's hard when they don't cooperate!!


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