Rested for 4 weeks but still have pain around the knee

[Taz6804]

Hi all! To the point I was training for my PJFT just over 4 weeks ago, I was doing sprints and I started to get a pain on the right side of my right knee, got onto the last sprint and I couldn't even get up to speed before it was to painful to run/ move it at all. Doctor said it is possibly soft tissue damage and signed me off work for 2 weeks but in all I have had about 4 weeks rest. I went back to work on Wednesday and the pain came back and is getting progressively worse by the day just like before. has anyone had anything similar if so how did you recover and how long did it take? I'm meant to have my PJFT at the end of the month but will probably have to push it back especially since I have not ran in just over a month now due to this stupid injury. Any advice is really welcome I want to get back to it as soon as possible . Thanks

 

[arny01]

See a Doctor / Physio??

 

[Chelonian]

Doctor said it is possibly soft tissue damage and signed me off work for 2 weeks but in all I have had about 4 weeks rest.

Well done for consulting your GP rather than just Dr Google. I'm not qualified to give you medical advice but from personal experience getting a definitive diagnosis of a soft tissue injury is not always straightforward. Sometimes an ultrasound scan can show an injury which would be unclear from an x-ray. But the waiting time for such a scan might be several weeks.

If you do have a soft tissue injury—as suggested by your GP—hoping that it will heal with only four weeks of rest might be optimistic. It might be worth asking your GP if he or she thinks that some form of physiotherapy will be helpful. Best of luck.

 

[Taz6804]

See a Doctor / Physio??

I have been to the Doctors twice and I'm going back to discuss physio next Tuesday

If you do have a soft tissue injury—as suggested by your GP—hoping that it will heal with only four weeks of rest might be optimistic. It might be worth asking your GP if he or she thinks that some form of physiotherapy will be helpful. Best of luck.

After he told me to rest for a couple weeks I was hoping I would be good to go by now, I didn't want to get benched for so long, stuff like this is really disheartening

 

[Chelonian]

After he told me to rest for a couple weeks I was hoping I would be good to go by now, I didn't want to get benched for so long, stuff like this is really disheartening

The positive is that you're not hobbling about on crutches. Seriously, it can happen.
Some injuries need time, patience and sometimes progressive therapy.
As disheartening as it is maybe focus on other areas which will be beneficial: pull ups, press ups and dhobi skills are just three.

 

[Taz6804]

The positive is that you're not hobbling about on crutches. Seriously, it can happen.
Some injuries need time, patience and sometimes progressive therapy.
As disheartening as it is maybe focus on other areas which will be beneficial: pull ups, press ups and dhobi skills are just three.

I still go to the gym for upper body, Hopefully I don't end up looking like the guy that always skips leg day haha 

 

[Chelonian]

Hopefully I don't end up looking like the guy that always skips leg day haha

I haven't been to a gym for years but from memory about 90% of guys at a gym skip leg day.

 

[Hubb97]

I know how frustrating knee Injuries can be, I had tendonitis which isn't as bad as could still run but seems to last for ages, took me the best part of 8 months to get rid of it and get back to fitness for PJFT but you just have to stay patient and do as your physio says. The best thing I did was single leg leg extensions- you will notice that your bad leg is a lot weaker than your good one so try and work it back up- my bad knee struggled with 15kg at first whereas my good one could do 30 but I've worked both up to 40 now so don't have as many issues. To be honest my knee still isn't perfect but got through PRMC fine so think it's all in the mind!

Best of luck, just remember to stay patient and it will pay off in the end. Let your career advisor know as soon as possible, you need to have been training properly for the PJFT for a while to pass it as it is a tough little test.

 

[Cuzza22297]

When I first submitted my application in February (and started running) in my enthusiasm I ran 20 miles total in the first week from nothing the weeks and months before. I began feeling a pain in the exact same place as you. Stopped running and months down the line it still hurt, saw a physio, he gave me some exercises and within a month I was running again, building up properly and have barely felt it since.

My advice would be go to the physio and hopefully he’ll find what the problem is and give you exercises to rectify it.

In the mean time the exercises he gave me were hip thrusts and leg clams for each leg. Obviously the same pain might not mean the same problem but no harm in giving it a go.

 

[Guest]

It is unfortunate to experience issues so soon before your PJFT. Perhaps you could investigate private physiotherapy around where you live; though private physio is expensive which is annoying, it may be worth the £30/£40 to get a proper biomechanical check in a short space of time; from personal experience it is important to follow the excellent advice explained by people who have posted above in this thread - get a proper diagnosis and then corrective exercises to deal with the root cause of the problem . I have had physio on the NHS and though it was excellent and the physio was very good it took over 2 months to get seen for half an hour. GPs have to identify and diagnose many health conditions but they are often not expert in diagnosing specific sports injuries, and will often prescribe rest or anti inflammatories, or refer you to orthopaedic physio. I don't mean this as any disrespect to GPs but they are not trained or taught to treat or identify sports injuries, because this is more a physio's specific field of expertise.

I am not an expert at all with sports injuries and we can't say how long you will take to get better but as a side note, your symptoms from what you describe (sudden onset side/lateral knee pain which becomes worse with activity) sound very much like iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS), which is a very common issue and something which you could look up, to see if it is similar to what you are experiencing. I have experienced the symptoms you describe with IT band syndrome before.

Please book in to see a physio and get a clear diagnosis, and then you will be back up to speed shortly I would imagine! Best of luck with your recovery