Wretched knee update. Urban poling.

[HeronNS]

After all my fuss about finding a way to wear a knee brace without looking like Frankenstein's monster it would appear there is no brace which will work for me. However I still need to find a way to "off-load" weight from the afflicted knee and have found a kind of urban poling, a variation of Nordic walking, which may help. Here's a link to a post I made in an OP forum: healthunlocked.com/american...

[PMRpro Ambassador]

I assume they are just larger surfaced tips than the usual ones? And flat rather than rounded?

[HeronNS in reply to PMRpro]

The rubber tips on my Nordic walking poles are like minature boots. These other ones are like inverted cups, quite a lot larger than the boot tips. You have to use them differently too, which requires different arm movement. Of course this is what I want at the moment as I need to offload the weight onto my arms, whereas in Nordic walking you aren't supposed to apply extra pressure to the poles, just use them as an aid to keep you moving quickly and giving your upper body an aerobic workout!

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to HeronNS]

Mine aren't nordic poles. they are walking poles with alternative tips for hard and less hard graound. Lots of older people use them to walk around town too

[jinasc]

Heron

Have you tried Flexiseq?

I have used it ever since it came onto the market - it is a bio-logical gel and works like WD40.

Gets in between the joints, as I sort of understand it......

It has helped me from the first day of trying it. Mind I still use a stick.

Worth a try?

[HeronNS in reply to jinasc]

How on earth can it work? How does it get into the joint? I think something like that would be fabulous. I'll look into it.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to HeronNS]

Its a microdroplets of an oily substance that can be absorbed through the skin into the joint.

flexiseq.com/

[HeronNS in reply to PMRpro]

Yep, just reading up on it. I'm sure I've read this before, too. Worth a try. Perhaps I'll hobble around the corner to the drugstore later today!

[jinasc in reply to PMRpro]

Thanks mate xx

[HeronNS]

This is the response I made to aquestion about how bad my knee is: Pretty bad. I don't have the x-ray report in front of me right now but ironically it's not as bad as the other knee, which is currently feeling and behaving fine! All "compartments" are involved, ranging from severe to moderate so an offloader brace is not an option. I think I have some soft tissue injury from a series of unfortunate events dating back to, probably, April. The knee is usually swollen, which makes it stiff, so I have a bunch of prescribed exercises to keep it as flexible as possible. I sleep with legs elevated. Sometimes it's pretty much okay, and then the next day it will be as bad as ever. A brace has been tried, fair trial, about a month, and doesn't do what I need it to do, which is to stop me from inadvertently moving in such a way as to cause an excruciating stabbing pain. It seems to make no difference if I'm wearing the brace or not if I try to walk any distance, or if I walk downhill or navigate steps. The hills/slopes/inclines issue is quite a problem for me as our city is built on a series of glacial drumlins! However I think the new poles I've just got will help because they really do enable me to offload some of the weight to my arms, as I walk. Too bad I have misbehaving shoulder too, but I need to walk more than I need to iron or vacuum! I used to get about 10,000 steps a day, of those about 3,000 just puttering around, the rest walking. Now I' lucky to get 2-3,000 including a short walk. Quite concerned about what this is going to do to my bone density as carrying extra weight really exacerbates the knee. I'm quite underweight as it is so losing weight not an option either.

[HeronNS]

Asked whether I had pain behind the knee (or was it kneecap?) No. The wrenching pain is like a knife stabbing into the side of my knee. First time it happened, which I think set off the whole cascade of increasing disability, it was on the outside of my knee (I was running downhill to catch a ferry), but since then on the inside. The greatest discomfort is caused by the swelling. I had to overuse this knee when the other one was injured in a stupid fall at the end of May. I am a klutz. However yesterday I developed a different attitude to the swelling. I believe it's nature's way of helping me guard the knee while whatever is going on heals. It does, of course, have the potential unfortunate side effect of leading to a locked knee joint, but I'm aware of that and can avoid it.

I sometimes (rarely and only recently) feel that there is a catching in the knee, which is concerning because it means the joint is not working as smoothly as it should and maybe I'm heading to bone on bone and a knee replacement. Think I will try the Flexiseq!

[readingbooks in reply to HeronNS]

" I feel there is a catching in the knee ". jogged a memory of, admittedly, many years ago, of a torn Meniscus. Just a thought .

[HeronNS in reply to readingbooks]

I read someone else being told this. That could explain the persistent swelling too, I suppose. Unfortunately we have doctor problems, and don't know how I can get referred to the appropriate specialist. I'll ask my physiotherapist when next I see her (January).