W2R1 and knee pain halts play

[linda9389]

Like many others I have never run before, I'm a complete newbie. Although I'm fairly active, walking every day, physical job, for 55 years I have hated anything and everything that leaves me out of breath or raises my heart rate! Recently inspired by a friend's C25K achievement I decided to give it a go. Two of my children agreed to join me and I was absoutely thrilled to get through week 1- it felt like a huge achievement. I went out and bought new running shoes after getting advice at a local running shop.

Then came W2R1. Again I was delighted to complete it, but from that moment one knee started to hurt: a burning feeling, sometimes deep inside my knee, sometimes down the inside of my leg. Eight years ago I had surgery to fix/tidy a meniscal tear. Until now I would have said it was 100% successful (even skiing doesn't cause any knee pain these days), but it seems odd it is just that knee that hurts after running. Yesterday I tried W2R2 as I was desperate to keep going (though in truth I knew it wasn't fully healed and that the ibuprofen was doing a great masking job).

Suffice to say that last night it kept waking me up, despite ibuprofen! Clearly I should have waited longer, but I am wondering whether I will ever be able to run, or whether the reduced cartilage in that knee might prevent me from running altogether? My kids are telling me to forget it, but I really, really don't want to give up. Do any of you lovely people have any thoughts? I have read such supportive posts on here, I suspect whatever the answer to the question, you would manage to make it sound positive! I don't really want to leave this forum with my first post!!!

[Bluebirdrunner Graduate]

Hi Linda, have read your post and am sorry to hear of your knee pain.

I'm afraid I can't offer any advice other than getting a medical opinion on it.. especially as it has flared up and is interupting your sleep.

Others on here may have experience of this and I really hope you manage to get over this, and are able to carry on running as you enjoy it.

Good luck and take care.😊

[linda9389 Graduate in reply to Bluebirdrunner]

Thanks. I think I was hoping someone might reply to say they had no cartilage either, but running was still OK for them

I will wait it out, try some of the strengthening exercises I have found on this forum and keep my fingers firmly crossed!

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

The knees are pesky things!!!

We ignore pain at our peril... but sometimes, they do protest in a none-threatening way, when asked to do things that maybe are slightly out of the norm!

I had an incident with my knee.. I wrote a post on it.. " The Incident of the Knee that twinged in the Night time.."

I ignored the pain and ended up on the IC for a while. I got a great knee support, which I wore for a while after.. then concentrated on exercises for the knee and touch wood no twinges since.

There have been lots of posts on knees and folk will be giving you advice.

Mine would be. maybe in view of your history get it checked out if possible.. simply RICE as well, and then take a gentle run out to see if it has sorted..it could just be, the knee asking " what the heck am I doing", sort of thing.

Hopefully it is just a reaction to using the legs in a different way... My knee pain resulted from new running shoes I think.. MY Tigger post... reflected that.. they had very bouncy soles and I think that was what caused my resulting pain!!! ( I use those shoes just on my cross trainer now! )

Good luck and as, I say, there will be a lot of very sound advice for you I am sure.. but.. no running until it feels better.. the IC can be okay, read everyone's posts and plan new routes!

Keep us posted please.. we would hate to lose you at this stage

[linda9389 Graduate in reply to Oldfloss]

Thanks. I am assuming my new shoes can't have caused this so quickly, but maybe I should go back into my old ones! You're right there is SO much good advice on here. Amazing resource.

[Dunder2004 Graduate]

I am afraid it is difficult for any of us to give a diagnosis.

I had issues with my left knee when I took up running and it took a visit to a physio to establish that the root of my problem was me having shonky hips which I was able to correct. There are a whole manner of things that could be the root cause.

It's not cheap but that could be the way to go. From what I have heard, referral through your GP is also possible but depends on local availability.

[linda9389 Graduate in reply to Dunder2004]

Good to hear that a physio got you past your problem. The more I read on here, the more I see that there could be lots of other reasons that may well be fixable. Fingers crossed