The last month of rest started off frustratingly, as the injection that i was given did nothing to relieve the pain, and the sensitivity i was experiencing was exactly the same as before.
In fact, i didn't notice any improvement until 3 weeks after my last visit!
Slowly i started to feel as though my leg was a bit more stable and my knee a bit more "solid".
The pain was still there, but at least not with every little movement!
I did try and do a few strengthening exercises towards the end of last month. Literally only 5 minutes or so.
2 days later i was in agony with muscle pain!
My quads were SO sore, and even standing up or sitting down was extremely painful.
2 days on and i awoke to a pain free quad! Very strange indeed!
So, last thursday my next appointment with the hospital arrived.
Just for interest sake, wednesday was the 1 year anniversary of my accident!
I caught the bus through, and by the time i had collected my file from reception (a 3h queue), it was time for my physio appointment.
I spoke to my physio about feeling a bit stronger, and also about the quad pain i had experienced.
Apparently it is called delayed onset muscle pain. Appears around 24h after doing strenuous exercise and lasts for about 48h!
He told me that he had just done a course and in the course they discussed ITBS!
He printed me out some sheets from his course explaining ITBS and also exercises for it.
I was surprised to find out that ITBS is not a repetitive strain injury as previously thought, but is caused by other muscles acting or not acting on the ITB.
Your Gluteus Maximus and Minimus and various other muscle groups influence how your ITB is stretched by acting on it depending on how strong they are. If one or more of these muscles are weaker, then the pulling forces are incorrect and create pain in the anterior part of the knee.
The remedy is to strengthen all of the muscles associated with the ITB to the correct degree, and the pain should go away.
On the memo were 3 exercises on stretching and strengthening the Gluteus Maximus, Hip Adductors and Hip Abductors.
Apparently doing these exercises 4 times a day, 6 days a week, for 6 weeks, is considered the minimum time period to strengthen them all sufficiently to relieve the pain.
I asked him to make a rough estimate of how long he thinks it will take me to walk again. He said a conservative estimate would be 6 months!
So, armed with this information, i headed off to the orthopaedic specialist to see what he had to say.
We discussed the injection and he decided against giving me another.
He said that another month of rest for my knee was to be had, but told me that various areas of my leg were very weak and needed strengthening.
My ankle also had nowhere near enough range of motion in it for walking, so i was given stretching for my achilles tendon as well.
He told me to do all my stretches and strengthening and return in a month to see where we are at.
So, now its down to me to get busy with a LOT of exercises to try and sort my knee out.
There have been times in the last year where i have been adamant that i needed another operation to fix the pain in my knee, and there have been times where i have gottten angry and cycled my ass off to try get there quicker. But all, to no avail.
I have now kinda made peace with the fact that a lot of hard work is necessary on my behalf to physio myself back to health.
I (hopefully) now have a list of exercises that if i stick to, will give me some relief and hopefully get me walking again.
The next month will be a telling one...
