Knee Pain - Patellofemoral Pain or Chondromalacia Patella

blondeintgeragrl · March 2010

Hey Girls!

Have any of you delt with this before? The doctor told me to stay away from my usual running and spinning and to incorporate the eliptical and strenght exercise.
I am fine with that.

My biggest issue is actually with sitting at work all day.
This is when I find it the most painful and I did read that with this that there is pain when sitting for extended amounst of time. Currently I am working 10-11 hour days at a CPA firm. There is not much I can change about that. I get up when I can and take OTC pain killers as directed but it makes sitting at my desk even worse then staring at the tax returns already is!

Nebb · March 2010

I had that last fall, and I can agree that sitting at my desk all day my knees just ACHED. Being on an anti-inflamatory helped, but once they wore off it hurt again (after the pills wore off). Elevate and ice your knees every night, that helped a lot for me. I posted a list of the stretches and exercises given to me by my physio in the 100 year old knees thread below, which helped a lot if I did them consistantly. Be VERY careful with strength training - try to do ones that are low impact (step ups, lunges, and squats will obviously be difficult, I still cant do step ups 4 months after the fact), use a stability ball if possible. Rowing is also good cardio that puts no pressure on the knees, I really enjoyed it when I was recovering.

blondeintgeragrl · March 2010

Thank you for making me think I am not crazy for sitting at my desj hurting. FI thinks I am crazy.

Can you explain what causes the pain when I am sitting? My explanation to him didn't seem scientific enough haha.

I will look at the list and see what I can do. I am trying to ice when I can, but for the next 6 weeks I pretty much go to bed when I walk in the door at night (sad I know). I may bring my ice wrap to work.

How long did it take you to recover? Have you started running agian or no?

Nebb · March 2010

It took quite a while to be honest. I started noticing pain in September, and ignored it until it got worse and hurt to spin (I was going to spinning once a week) and do any lower body weights, then I finally went to the doctor about it in October. I think I left it too long, because I wasnt listening to my body. I went through physio for about a month and a half and then just did exercises at home. I wasnt able to start doing lower body stuff until January and that was light stuff - I have worked squats and lunges back in but I stop the minute my knees start to hurt and ice immediately after.

I do run now, started a bit in january and generally could run for 3 days before my knees got agrivated enough that I would have to take a few days off from running and ice constantly. I generally only do running intervals for 20 minutes of my work out though, so that I still get the benefit but take it a bit easy on my knees.

When I was sitting it was just uncomfortable. It was like pressure and achyness and a dull throb behind my kneecap. I would fidget a lot because I wasnt comfortable any way that I sat.

Hwrd2be · March 2010

I have that same thing so I can completely understand. I only sit at my job for 8 hours and I get breaks but I still get the achy pain. My mom gave me some stuff called Biofreeze which does seem to help some. I would definitly be careful with the excercises too. I was told at physical therapy that the bike was suppost to help but to me the bike & eliptical actually hurt my knee worse. Sometimes my knee gets so bad that I just have to walk around and stretch sometimes because it gets so painful. I am sorry that you have to deal with this.

kelseyd625 · March 2010

I'm currently dealing with that a a few other knee issues right now! It's definitely not very fun, but I've been doing quad stretches and strengthening exercises to build up my quad muscles because that muscle supports and surrounds the knee. It's already started to help. Definitley make sure you are icing on a regular basis. I've been seeing a physical therapist to make sure I'm doing all the movements correctly because if you do them wrong, you could hurt yourself even more.

obi_wan_quixote · March 2010

I tore up both my knees doing stupid things in my youth. My right knee has been hurting constantly for the last 10 years, ever since I blew it out and had ACL surgery. There are a host of other problems too. This is what I found worked for me:

1) Chondroitin and Glaucosamin - pardon my lousy spelling. I used to think this was snake oil, but after taking 4 a day for a few months my knees feel much better and I can work out again

2) Strength training- I'm not sure why this is, but I know it works with me. When I squat with just body weight, or with light weights, my knees scream. There are days when I can barely stand up. During the same work out, if I grit my teeth and go heavy, they stop hurting. And what's more amazing, is they don't hurt for the rest of the week. Walking up and down stairs at the office is my main test of that.

I read once somewhere that almost all joint pain is a sign of muscular weakness. In my case that seems to be true. The stronger I get, the less they hurt. That's incentive to not skip gym days.

3) Keep Inflamation down - Ice and Ibuprofen basically kept me functional for years. When I first started lifting regularly again, I had to ice after workouts and sometimes pop ibuprofen before the work out to get through it. Now that I've strengthened the joint, I skip the ibu and sometimes even the ice.

That's just my experience. I'd check with a doctor or some certified professional, but I'll just say that I found doing more, not less, to be the key to recovery.

noelle24 · March 2010

Strength training for quads and hamstrings is important because these muscles help to stabilize your kneecap. This type of knee pain is caused by inflammation from the kneecap rubbing against cartiledge and bone in your knee. Strengthening your legs (low impact!) will help keep your kneecap in place when you get back to your usual activities, and help prevent future (and further) injury.

blondeintgeragrl · March 2010

Thanks for all the info amd comments! The doctor wasn't the friendliest ever, so its nice ot get some encourage from you girls.

obi_wan_quixote · March 2010

One other thing that helped me is a foam roller for my IT band. It hurts like the dickens but it works. A tight IT band can pull your knee cap off alignment so it doesn't track quite right. That leads to inflamation and that leads to pain.

So in addition to strengthening, make sure you stretch and roll things out.

Pirata13 · March 2010

The strengthening exercises will help. The idea being the stronger your quads are, the more it holds your kneecap in place instead of it sliding around and scraping against the other bones in your knee. Sounds like you're doing all you can to take care of it. I had it when I was 19, and hate to say it, but after PT for months, the only option for me was surgery. It was arthroscopic though, and I am sure that things have advanced in the past 20 years, so it's probably even smoother and better recovery now than when I had it, if that's any consolation to those of us who may face it in the future. All I can say is do whatever the PTs or docs tell you to do. Good luck! Knee problems suck.

ctappin · March 2010

Little late on this post. I've actually dealt with Chrondromalacia patella pain since 3rd grade. This past year, my orthopedist told me I should have had surgery because my patella sits up too high, which is causing my leg pain, but it was a surgery that I should have had when I was much younger and still growing. They told me to basically keep up with the strength training, which has helped significantly over the years, and also to swim and do the elliptical - both low impact training. But I still get pain from sitting at my 8-hr a day desk job as well. I try to take aleve/naproxen when I need to, but only in moderation. Sorry for the long post, but definitely feel your pain (no pun intended).

Knee Pain - Patellofemoral Pain or Chondromalacia Patella

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