Knee Pain/Patellofemoral Injury - How to Fix!

Hi Everyone!

Back in August I suffered an injury which I thought was a torn meniscus, but ended up being a "patellofemoral injury".  In fact, the sports med Dr. figured that I dislocated my patella which was now leading to extreme inner knee pain as all the muscles/ligaments were strained.  I was having occasional episodes of inner knee pain prior to my injury and had a really tight right quad/IT band for months prior to this happening.  It is very common in runners and cyclist to have tight quads and IT bands and weak glutes which predispose you to patellofemoral injury (the tight quad and IT band cause your patella/knee cap to track towards the outside which can lead to inner knee pain as it is pulling... it can also lead to outer knee pain as your patella can scrape along the femur causing pain and inflammation).  For me, they figure that anatomically shallow patellar groove also helped the dislocation.

I've been doing physio since September and it has helped TREMENDOUSLY.  I was not a believer that such simple (and boring) exercises could actually help.  But it has been amazing!  My rehab program has been focused on strengthening the glute, hip and VMO (part of quad on the inner part of the leg) as well as practicing proper biomechanics and stretching my tight quad. 

I'm not an expert and the above info is just my understanding of my own injury.

The point I want to get across here is that PHYSIO WORKS!  If you're having knee pain, it's better to seek treatment now then later.  I had to be out of comission for 15 weeks, with the first 8 weeks being so extremely painful that I could barely walk.  I didn't even seek physio until about 9 weeks in but I am confident that if I had gone right away, I would have been rehabilitated earlier.  I am even more confident that if I had gone to physio MONTHS before this had even happened, there is a good chance I could have PREVENTED IT!!  My best advice is that if you have knee pain, get to a sport physiotherapist that can assess your biomechanics and give you glute/hip strengthening exercises (which will only work if you do your physio exercise homework)

Thanks for reading.