Knee Pain

I am a qualified yoga instructor. Sadly yoga can't heal the tear in my cartilage or remove the cycsts in my knee. However yoga can be used to strengthen and stabilise the knee joint and to help improve range of movement too.

6 week post-op on surgery on my left knee here. Managed to get myself a heafty tear in my medial meniscus, and also had a chunk missing from my articular cartilage.... Not sure how, i think the tear had started small, maybe gradually got worse until it finally blew up pissing around playing basketball of all things. The articular defect was caused by landing on my knee at some point. Direct impact.

I've rode BMX for the last 20 years, including numerous falls... which would explain things. It has felt occasionally weak for the last couple of years too, and i'm sure riding fixed cant have helped either.

Luckily I had private healthcare form my previous employer (i was made redundant the week of my op), so everything moved pretty quick, from first consultation... I've have had the meniscus sewn up, rather than trimmed. Because at the same time i've had a microfracture on the articular cartilage, i've been not weight bearing, and only gradually bending the knee from 3 weeks post op. Which allowed more time for the meniscus to start knitting together.

At the physio tomorrow, when, i've been told, the hulk of a knee brace can come off and i can start weight bearing, gradually.

Physio says stationary bike should only be a couple more weeks off (time to look at turbo trainers), followed by regular cycling few more weeks after that. Anything impact related (BMX) is a while away... 4 months post op probably. Will report back on how things go.

Anyone else had similar operations? Having them both at the same time probably isn't gonna make my recovery any quicker... However, I have been relatively pain free. Even the few days straight after the op. I assume he was either a very good surgeon, or hasn't actually done anything.

I think that's what's happened, giving it a proper stretch out has seemed to do the trick, hopefully it'll help with the movement as well as my knee's been crap for years now... mine was a buggered when I had an arthroscopy, the surgeon had to cut out torn cartilage and suggested my ACL fix as well. One of my mates has gone through the same as me, seems like playing football at a young age isn't always the best.

Bit of an odd one. I seem to have tweaked something at the back of my knee - happened on a hilly ride 2 weeks ago. No sudden pain, more of a growing ache, that has remained. I've rested the knee for a week and then been on a short ride and had to stop and go home - twice. Again, not a sharp pain, just a little discomfort.

I've been bike fitted and this happened on a bike that I've used without problems for 3 or so years. I had some shite Look pedals on it that were so slack in terms of tension my feet were flopping around - wondering if that might have caused an overextension or something?

You never know, the smallest thing can cause a problem, knees are complex things afterall... mine flared up after moving the seat up about 1cm... never again!

Top of the calf maybe?

Quite possibly! It's really difficult to identify exactly where. Hopefully just a v minor calf strain

Hello knee people. I'm a recent graduate to this world following a tweak to my medial ligament/meniscus/cartilage something or other while skiing about 3 weeks back.

I don't think it's serious, but is new area for me. I went to the doctor and he gave my leg a good twist around. No instability or pain other than in the exact spot where the tweak has happened.

Three weeks on, I'm still in some discomfort but am slowly getting back on the bike. My commute is 12 miles each way so didn't want to get half way through and find it flared up. Hoping to embark on the ride tomorrow.

My big concern though is riding fixed (don't worry, I will start on the road bike / freewheel). Anyone else done similar to their knee? How did the forces associated with fixed riding hamper your recovery?

TLDR: if your medial ligament is giving you agro, how bad is fixed riding for it?

I'd argue it's more to do with pushing a higher gear than necessary rather than specifically riding fixed that would be the problem. Use the road bike, and stick to spinning away.

Thanks. Did the commute this morning and it went well. Bit stiff now but generally pain free which was good.

The knee likes the regiment straight drive of pedalling, and was ok out of the saddle putting some power down on the short climbs.

My concern is that when resistance braking riding fixed is marginally less linear in terms of how you use your legs and knees. Anyone have experience of a dodgy knee giving them agro during deceleration?

Hey experts, having knee issues (wobbly/painful at times/unusable occasionally - waiting to see a doctor about it). In the mean time, anyone have suggestions for knee braces that don't slide down the leg constantly? Or ways of stopping this from happening? I have a couple but it's a huge pain to keep them where they should be. Especially as I walk/like to walk a lot.

So a month ago i started having knee pains, with pain moving around the knees, going up and down in intensity at weird times, after being static behind the desk. It felt a bit like an inflamation that i had before, expect it wouldn't go away at all.
It started at the end of a london to paris in march without much training beforehand. So i thought that was the cause, it had put too much stress on them in one go, so felt pretty guilty about it as well.
I was using shimano xt spds, on commute bike and road bike. I randomly tried to change them for some classic look pedals and the pain went away in a day ! wtf. They must have been too worn, too loose or something. but hey, worth trying everything. even what doesn't make obvious sense, as it turns out i needed less float.

I find that using a foam roller on the legs to stretch the iliotibial band (ITB) is a great way to help reduce knee pain, as a very tight ITB can play havoc with knees after long rides.

Do you need full knee braces or would some standard/non-bracing knee warmers do? You can wear them under trousers.

Have you considered yoga?

I've got one with four straps, and a tube style one. Both slide down.

Not sure if I need them, but they provide support for wobbles, and compression is good, presumably.

Currently got double patella tendonopthy, lots of squats, lots of massage with a stick thing and some light turbo, its getting better but very slowly been rehabbing for five weeks and still aches a big chunk of the day

Agreed. First ride yesterday in 6 months (following a previous 6 months of maybe a handful of rides)
Rode ditchling fixed. Right knee instantly buggered.

Remember it used to happen a lot before I started cycling more seriously (and stretching/using rollers)

Flexibility is a huge help to knees.

Can anyone recommend a good knee surgeon? Had an arthroscopy for a complicated meniscus tear about a year ago which has made my knee a lot worse. I can't ride a bike at all now. I've lost faith in the local surgeons to me, they never really instilled a lot of confidence in me.

Was looking at Andy Williams or Bill Ribbans, both sports specialists, but neither operate through the NHS any more. South of England / London area preferred.

Had two knee ops from this guy who's well respected I believe https://www.bmihealthcare.co.uk/consultants/adrian-james-wilson

Looking for some advice please. I've been commuting around 25mi to and from work for the past 2.5 years, fixed gear. Back in April I got a new bike (fixed again, same 48x17 ratio) and switched from pedals & straps to SPDs for the first time. I was clueless so looked in to it online and saw that the alignment of the cleats is pretty important as getting it wrong can cause problems...
Played around with them for a bit and after a couple of test runs thought I'd got the positioning right and have been fine using them up until a couple of weeks ago when my right knee started aching. Foolishly, but mainly because I hate public transport, I ignored it for 4-5 days until I had to accept defeat and have been sans velo for the last 10 days or so. Knee still feels internally swollen, looks slightly swollen, is stiff and aches.

I'm guessing, since only the right side is affected, that the right-hand cleat was not positioned properly after all? But I would have thought that would have become clear sooner than it did. As far as I know or can remember there wasn't a single event that could otherwise explain it.

Saw my GP, didn't have much to say, I feel like it's cycling related so was hoping to get an informed opinion here. Clearly the positioning of the cleats will vary from one foot to the next, but if there are any guidelines you know of I'd like to hear them!

Cheers

Some witchdoctoring here: I had succes from looking at how my feet was aligned when flat-pedalling and recreating the same alignment avec cleats.

Bike fit?

ha, didn't even cross my mind! will look in to it

Switching from flats to SPD pedals can effectively drop your pedal by a few mm (pedal recesses into the sole of the shoe), so maybe dropping your saddle by a few mm might help ... just a thought!

i had knee pains with spds ( see a few posts above ), similar to yours. I tried various things but ultimately it was a change to road pedals that did the trick.
It's been 3/4 months now without any issue, but i have thought a lot about what could have been wrong with the spds, and i am pretty convinced that it was the vertical position of my foot on the pedal, not the alignement/angle that was the cause. The spd cleat was too close to the toes whereas my foot sits much more forward on the pedal now.

Maybe the straps you were using allowed for far less movement than spds, or you were used to pushing with a different area of the foot.

Just some personal experience, to highlight the fact that i was looking wrongly at the issue at the start.