So after my attempted marathon in Billings, my knee was hurting pretty bad. I iced and took ibuprofen but it didn't help. If I was really, really, careful when I stepped it wouldn't hurt, but most of the time I stepped down I would get a shooting pain in the knee. Our friend Abby works at a sports medicine clinic in Helena and was able to work me in on Monday. Lindsay came with me (to ensure I went) and we got checked out. Abby ran some simple tests and then they brought the ultrasound in to take a better look at my knee. Essentially they found some bursitis in my knee and decided to give me a shot in the knee. Now I am not usually afraid of needles, and I actually like to watch when I have blood drawn or have shots in the arm, but something about a needle going into my knee joint gave me the willies. I broke out in a cold sweat and covered their exam table with perspiration in no time. I asked Abby if the shot was going to make me squeal and she said yep! The funny thing is that the shot didn't hurt. I actually didn't even feel the needle go in. The best part???? I almost immediately felt relief! Man this shot in the knee thing was AWESOME! I felt like I could go for a run that afternoon if I wanted, however they warned me to take it easy for a couple weeks and ease back into it. By the next day the effects of the shot had slightly worn off and I was still feeling some pain. It seemed like it was in my knee but really low, kind of where my calf muscle attaches to the knee. After about a week off I attempted to spin really easy but that brought some of the pain back.
Lindsay's sister, Olivia, is a physical therapist in New Jersey and so we had some discussions with her and she recommended I go see a PT in Helena. She recommended one whom she knew to be an athlete. I went to the PT and he checked out my running and figured I needed orthotics. I tried those for a couple weeks but things weren't improving much or at a very slow rate. Next we tried some strengthening and stretching which helped some. As time went on I slowly came to realize that certain stretches really helped, primarily those where I stretched my hamstring. Specifically if I rotated my hip so I felt I was stretching the outside of my hamstring, but not my IT band. The more I played with this the quicker I felt better. Upon working more with the PT he showed me a diagram of where the hamstring attaches to the leg, which surprised me that it was low on the knee near the outside, where I was having pain. Essentially I had tendinitis of the hamstring tendon. This diagnosis was not firm, but suspected. Even if I had an actual injury, the treatment would not be much different. Lots of stretching and strengthening. In the meantime I was done running for the near future. Healing these things takes time. Bummer!
Lindsay's sister, Olivia, is a physical therapist in New Jersey and so we had some discussions with her and she recommended I go see a PT in Helena. She recommended one whom she knew to be an athlete. I went to the PT and he checked out my running and figured I needed orthotics. I tried those for a couple weeks but things weren't improving much or at a very slow rate. Next we tried some strengthening and stretching which helped some. As time went on I slowly came to realize that certain stretches really helped, primarily those where I stretched my hamstring. Specifically if I rotated my hip so I felt I was stretching the outside of my hamstring, but not my IT band. The more I played with this the quicker I felt better. Upon working more with the PT he showed me a diagram of where the hamstring attaches to the leg, which surprised me that it was low on the knee near the outside, where I was having pain. Essentially I had tendinitis of the hamstring tendon. This diagnosis was not firm, but suspected. Even if I had an actual injury, the treatment would not be much different. Lots of stretching and strengthening. In the meantime I was done running for the near future. Healing these things takes time. Bummer!