Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Set Back: Left Knee Issues

I started noticing that as my hours increased at the grocery store, my left knee began feeling 'tight' and 'tender' while checking groceries. There is a lot of twisting and pivoting on the knees when you stand on rubber mats wearing slip-resistant shoes and you are passing many many items from right to left. What affects it most though is when passing the fully packed bags, and/or large items, from the register area to the end of the check stand.

On April 28th, I was squatting down AND twisting in to the left to lower and place a case of beer under a shopping cart. I felt a very sharp and sudden pain and had great difficulty standing up. I was limping the rest of the day. I iced it that night.  What is odd, is that the pain was here, it was there, it was everywhere. It moved!!! I swear it confused me.

SPORTS DOCTOR:  Saw a doctor last week - he said that my knee was swollen behind the knee and when he touched one spot on the inside of the knee I about went through the roof. He said NO RUNNING!! He is suspecting a 'medial tear'. He said it could be several things though so he ordered an MRI. He said I could walk, but to elevate and ice it and DO NOT TWIST IT and NO SKATING. No lateral knee movement. Forward motions only.

TWO CONSTANTS: Although the pain moves from left to right to above the knee to below it, there are two constants.

1 - Squatting down there is only slight burning when squatting low and my knee is fully bent. Getting low to pick something up isn't terribly hard at all. But it is now very hard to stand up from the squatting or sitting on the floor positions. Putting any weight on it doing so is painful so I am using upper body/arms to press myself up or asking others to help me up.

2 - Any FULL bending of the knee, be it sitting in a chair, sitting cross legged, or squatting when at work or cleaning house, sometimes causes burning pain on the front sides or lower knee but it ALWAYS results in a very ODD sensation AFTER I re-straighten my leg - it feels like there is a strong pull in the back of the knee area, and often with a sensation of a knot or ball being in that pull. It subsides soon enough most of the time.

What is most disconcerting though is that the more I am at work, the more PAIN I feel. In the check stand yesterday there was light burning (all over it) but on at least 5 separate occasions I had very SUDDEN and very PAINFUL spasms on the lower inside of the left knee. Four of the spasms caused me to cry out in the checkstand. And the odd thing with that, is THOSE pains/spasms appear to be generated on the inside of the left knee area, about an inch or two BELOW the knee. What the heck?!?! Touching it I found it VERY tender. Then at home, I could only locate pain there twice but checked quite a few times.


  • It is confusing that the pain is in random places.



  • It is confusing that when straightening the knee after bending it sharply, there is a strong pulling sensation in the REAR of the knee when I walk.



  • It is confusing that random sudden spasms strike at work on the inside of the leg just BELOW the knee.

  • It is confusing that at random times the knee buckles and I falter on it....though few and far between....it never happened before this injury.


Walking does not cause pain but long walks (5 mile) result in tightness BEHIND the knee.

MRI is tomorrow night. Results will be the Wednesday after. I miss running.