UKC

After a couple of months of knee pain- especially on descents,  I decided to see my  physio who thought it maybe cartilage damage., but referred me to a knee specialist. 

The outcome from the specialist is he is of the opinion that I have tendonitis in my knee.  He didn't give me much advice other than to rest it and not go hill walking for the foreseeable future.

Has anyone suffered from the same injury and any tips on recovery? 

Regards Mischap

In reply to Mischap:I've had this and plenty of similar running induced tendonitis too.  Its perfectly possible to work round this.

  How old are you? Basically , after rest and recovery,  strengthening and likely more cushioned footwear are good srarts

In reply to Mischap:

Are you already using "walking" poles? I notice (56) that on long descents now, on a lighter day when I've left the poles at home, that my knees really feel it.

Use the strap correctly, not dangling limply round your wrist, and ensure you are placing the pole well forward and really weight it.

Good luck with your recovery.

In reply to wbo2:

Just turned 50.

Looking like a long rehab!! Got cushioned footwear- as advised by podiatrist.

In reply to Ghastlyrabbitfat:

Started using poles this year-in training for the Welsh 3000's. Made a great deal of difference.

Struggling walking around the house at the mo- let alone up any gradient!!

In reply to Mischap:

It is hard, because tendons can take a long time to recover. I had a partial rupture of an achilles in summer of 2018 and stopped running for six months. Every morning for about 12 months after the pain had eased off it would ache for the first ten minutes of the day. "Knocked off" a few Wainwrights with the good wife (she is ticking) two weeks ago and realised towards the end of the walk that for the first time since the injury it wasn't aching on the hill.

When I wasn't running the bike was great to keep the fitness up but not load the tendon too much. Spinning a small gear for 1 to 2 hours, and avoiding long climbs, where it's easy to slip into pushing a gear, worked well. Contact your specialist, or maybe a sports injury specialist, to ascertain if cycling would be acceptable when the inflammation has eased.

Ironically, my achilles went because I started to run on the balls of my feet to protect my knees

It'll seem rough now but you'll get there.

In reply to Mischap:

I tolerated pain in my knee for several years of unsuccessful treatment until a good physio identified the problem.  All I had to do was stretch my hamstrings before doing any exercise. The pain only came on during descents making it a little difficult to diagnose but he knew within minutes. He suggested that the muscles at the back were out of balance with those at the front. Two weeks of of this solved the problem for me and I've never had a repeat in several years.

Al

In reply to Mischap:

Hi Mishap

I've recently been diagnosed with both quadricep and patellar tendonitis in my left knee after a few months of pain that hasn't improved. I was struggling to walk up stairs and drive without pain and eventually went to a physio.

I've been told to rest it properly and reduce my activity to let the initial inflammation reduce ( I hadn't been very strict about this initially)

The physio has given me 3 exercises to do while I'm on less exercise, which you could try too

Leg raises 10 reps for 3 sets.

Bridges 10 reps for 3 sets

An exercise where you lie down, place a football under the knee, and try to push the football into the ground, hold for 5 seconds and then repeat 10 times for 3 sets.

The theory is this will gently stretch and strengthen the tendons, it's slow going, and frustrating not getting out and about but hopefully will be back to a pain free knee soon

Best of luck!

In reply to Mischap:I'm doing most of my walking in running shoes now.  I've done that for many years but this year have started using shoes with lots of cushioning or descents at the end of long days are hard, and take too long to recover from

In reply to Mischap:

Tendonitis as several other posters have observed is not necessarily best treated by rest.  I've had it in my Achillies tendon and knee three or four times. and in the first case it took just over a year to sort itself out. It was only after a friend of mine, an extremely fit Royal Marine told me it happened a lot in the marines and suggested  I do stretching exercises and more the better.   I really didn't have the perseverance to do what he suggested for more than ten or twenty minutes a day.  In the end I got so fed up I just went X-country skiing anyway (which really stretches tendons) .  And my tendonitis went  within a day or two.

You got some extremely good advice from the other posters.  There are a number of different approaches.  You just need to try one that works.