Torn Meniscus Update: Sprained, strained knee, cycling and running
So last week while sitting around having my own personal my knee hurts pity party, I finally joined EN. Honestly, I don't have the time to train with the local TRI gurus on my local team. They just have more time to train and are so fast I feel out of place. They are nice enough, but it doesn't work for me.
I'm also organized enough, that I don't require constant attention and coddling. I've also seen the success EN members more like myself have had. And I like the philosophy of getting faster and then adding endurance. I've tried the adding endurance thing, and I've completed to HIM races, both very slowly. So that worked, but didn't have the desired result for me. It's time to learn some new things.
Today I had my appt with my regular normal doctor (not orthopedic) to look at my knee. Well my doctor has lifetime knee issues come to find out so he knows knees pretty well. His prognosis is that I had some pretty significant trauma but nothing is appears torn from X ray or his exam. My knee popped loudly and I felt it getting out of my car (twisting motion) of all things, not running or something logical.
I still need to drop a lot of weight, but since I started training 3 years ago (and one new child) I've lost a bit and my blood pressure is way way down. No more BP meds. So my knee has lots of fluid in it and swelling. Doc says I can bike as hard as I want but to get back to running taking it easy. He also recommends I wear a soft knee brace to hold everything in alignment. My concern is that this will lead to weakness in the knee. We talked about my training goals and both agreed to an MRI should the pain persist. I refused pain meds, because I don't want to destroy my knee all hopped up on pain killers.
On a scale of 1 to 10 it hurts about a 1 all the time. It hurts about 3 on a jog for about 10 minutes and then goes back to 1 for the rest of the jog. On a run it hurts about 5 but goes away after 10 minutes too. Now a few hours after running it will hurt about a 4 to 6 for a long time (a few days). I'm about 3 weeks into this injury and am wondering what to do.
My next race is in 4 weeks, a sprint. I've already decided walking the 5k is an option. It's a venue my wife loves and we are going. A few weeks later I have a local sprint, again walking is an option. In two months I have my summer Olympic. I'd like to run this one. Then my current plan is to do the get faster plan this summer. Well I need to go all out then. My A race is IM Austin 70.3. My sorta personal goal is to break 7 hours, which would be fast for me. My first two halves were 8 hour affairs.
Anyone out there training in a knee brace? Any particular warning signs or problems to watch out for? I realize not twisting my knee getting out of the car in our tight garage is now #1. With the new baby I try to give the Mrs. lots of garage room which cuts down on my egress space.
If the doc says it's okay should I go push it and test it? Should I ease back into running? Should I just swim and bike my arse off for the next 4-6 weeks? I'm going to do some one on one lessons for some swim time. I watched a local guy my age go from the slow lane at Master's over 3 lanes in one season with some one on one coaching. I could probably get close to the same.
Doc doesn't think it's a torn miniscus due to the lack of pain on fleshy parts of the knee and great gaps and alignment in the X rays, but it is still technically possible. If pain gets worse, the MRI will determine this one.
Comments
Now is the time to concentrate on bike and swim and address any weaknesses you might have with those disciplines. In my opinion, both swim and bike fitness can translate to run fitness as soon as you're cleared - but don't push it.
What area of Dallas do you live in? I'm not too far from White Rock.
Yes I'm going to focus on swimming and cycling for a while. My A race is Austin in October and my real goal is IMTX next year, so I should be okay. I'll post an update as soon as I have an answer from the doc (maybe later today). the MRI is at 1230.
Cartilage damage to knee. Since I have tons of cartilage, doc says the bad stuff needs to slough off and will over time. He says these things sort themselves out over a few weeks / months. He prescribed a super strenght NSAID (apparently one is equivalent to around 4000 mg ibuprofen). He says take one and go for it. He said use my knee like I want to and report back in 3 weeks.....
This is going to be a fun experiment in pain I imagine. I see a lot of ice in my future and bitching and moaning too. My wife is going to deserve a really nice dinner once this is back to normal.
Keep up the hard work of building back up. You can do this! Take your time.