Progress Note

The hardest thing to do as a runner is not run. On rest days, or days that I'm sick or injured I feel guilty, anxious, and depressed that I can't run. I envy people I see running down the street. I jokingly tell my friends that "running is a sickness". We have dubbed it "SRS" which stands for "Stupid Runner's Syndrome". I understand how your feeling and I hope the cortisone helps, but you may want to really try to rest more than 6 days. Don't worry about endurance and conditioning. It is amazing how your body bounces back after a long rest.

Thank you so much! I've already decided to hold off until Sunday and see how I feel then. My knee is swollen and bruised, so I don't think I could run well, so I'm not even going to try. I'm a relatively new runner (3 years), so I don't have much of a base yet and worry constantly that I'm losing all the hard work I put in before the accident. But, I also know that I can't recover well, if I don't recover smart. Hopefully, I'll have good news to report soon!

Good decision! Running history is littered with stories of runners who have been forced to have time out with injury and have come back stronger for it. You also risk doing severe damage to yourself byu running after a cortisone shot; as you probably know it is basically acting as an anti-inflammatory and can take the pain away while doing little or nothing to fix the underlying problem.

You won't lose your base aerobic fitness if you train in the pool, or even on a bike if your knee will allow that.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't give up on physical therapy. When it "doesn't work" it is sometimes because it is the wrong treatment. Get yourself to a good, specialist sports physio or massage therapist.

A simplistic idea, for what it's worth: I had a lot of trouble with one of my knees for a while, and it sounds similar to what is happening to you...I would be running (well, playing soccer at the time, usually) and it would just buckle under me and down I'd go. It was like it locked up. I was exploring ways of having cartilage surgery when a friend frog-marched me to the local soigneur (specialist cycle-racing sports therapist. That guy "stripped" my ITB (the long strip of connective tissue that runs down the sides of your legs almost from the hip to the side of the knee). It was excrutiating, but instantly fixed my knee.
You never know.

I've been working on my ITB, too. I know of a good ART - I'll see if I can get an appointment after the swelling from the injection goes down. I have a purple golfball on the inside of my knee right now.

I'll also start getting into the pool at the gym more.

Thanks!

Good job! ART is fantastic -- you've reminded me it's about time I had a couple more sessions.