Bree, all I can tell you is what I did even though each of our situations is different. For my shoulder I got the cortisone shot to reduce the inflamation AND I went to the chiro to make sure everything stayed in the right position and that the muscles weren’t pulling on it. And then I did range of motion exercises before I added any exercises with weight.
Right now because of all the running, I’ve been to the chiro frequently about my knee. It’s fine unless I stress it (running or skiing). His diagnosis is that the muscles on the inside of my knee are tight and those on the outside are weaker. So I’m now doing stretches and have an exercise to do from my trainer.
My main point is that a good chiro gives you another perspective on whatever is going on with your knee.
It sounds like Joan’s knee issues are the opposite to mine as far as muscles are conserned. My quads are tight on the outside and weaker on the inside of the leg. Joan - what stretches do you do for your knees. I do the quad stretch where I pull my foot toward my bum - usually standing (I could barely grab my foot 3 months ago - now it is not a problem and I can even balance on the other without to much problem!!
Sorry for hijacking your thread Bree - but I’m sure you want to hear the answer too.
I’ve been standing wide-legged and then since my right knee is the problem, I bend my left knee and move my weight over my left knee, keeping my right leg stretched out to the right. What the trainer told me today to do in addition, is while in almost the same position, lift my right leg off the floor. That should strengthen the muscles on the outside of my leg. I’ve also used the machine where you sit and move weights either out or in with the sides of your thighs. I’ve had to push the weights out (abduction) but for the opposite problem you’d move them in (adduction). Of course, Bree needs to know what exactly is causing her the inflamation. It might not be what Catherine or I have.
Hijack away! Information is power. I’m going to talk Hubby into being OK with me starting up with a chiropractor. I had a neck injury when I worked in a nursing home, and I think it would just help in general, and the knee thing is just a bonus!
Mouse is home sick again today. We found a cough medicine that helps, but she’s still a bit run down. I’m so thankful I can be home with her and not worried about work.
Joan, after your shot, could you get back to your normal routine right away? As long as I stay off of it, there’s no pain. So if the shot just made the pain stop, its not worth it. Thanks for all your help, you and Catherine have been wonderful!
After the cortisone shot in my shoulder, I was told not to do any exercises with weights for a week, just range-of-motion exercises. I doubt if they’d tell you you couldn’t walk on your knee at all (that is weight-bearing), but you probably would have to take it easy maybe for a week.
A cortisone shot is not a pain killer. Cortisone works to reduce inflamation. Of course, when inflamation goes down, so does pain.
My shoulder issue was with the rotator cuff. As I understand it (and I’ve just been a patient, not a medical person), several muscles overlap each other as they attach around the shoulder. Normally they slide over one another which allows us to move our arms in so many different directions. My muscles were inflamed which means they were swollen. That meant they couldn’t slide easily. No matter how hard I tried to “baby” the shoulder and no matter how hard my body worked to heal, when I moved, the muscles kept getting inflamed from rubbing on one another. The cortisone reduced the inflamation and kept it reduced so the muscles could stay at their normal size and slide easily. And then the original injury was able to heal. Now I am finally at the stage where I’m adding more weights to my training to regain the strength I had.
As far as your knee goes, I’d go to the chiro first. He/she might be able to adjust you and/or work on your muscles and you might not need a cortisone shot. My cortisone shot came after the chiro put my shoulder and two ribs back in place. The chiro adjustment helped a lot; it just wasn’t enough. However, the cortisone shot without the adjustment would have been just a temporary fix and not really worth doing.
Disclaimer: All of the above is my personal experience and I am not a medical professional. . .
Mouse is feeling better, hooray! She’s been so bored without her friends or her sister home. Even with them digging up our backyard all day.
Hubby says no on the chiropractor. Claims it’ll just turn into another bill. I’ll start working on him, maybe in another 10 years he’ll relent.
Jenn just called, we’re gonna do Namaste yoga tomorrow, and that’s the plan for tonight too. I did lots of hardio today, my knee is letting me know it too. No pain, but some pressure. I’ll ice it after yoga.
Namaste was so fun last night! I like doing the sequences. Iced my knee as I was reading in bed last night, feels fine this morning. I’m gonna call the doc and find out what I can do since this is just inflammation. I’d like to at least walk the dogs in addition to my yoga. If this is something I can work out through, with precautions, I’d love to. If not, then I don’t want to even think about it.
I MISS SWEATING!!! And no, the extreme heat doesn’t count. So I will not be just sitting outside to get my sweat on.
Candy, just to prove how right you are, my doc’s had me on 600 mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day for a couple of weeks.
Today we did Namaste yoga. They did balancing on their elbows, I found a pic to show. Jenn and I just watched that part. I tried, it didn’t work so well.
I had a coffee today, haven’t been to one if forever, it was so much fun! Lots of new members that I haven’t met, food was delicious.
It’s been a good day, I also got the OK from the doc to start really moving again. I have to be careful, of course, and I will, of course. So Jenn and I are starting the fat burning express for the power 90 on Sunday. I’m going to have the mini trampoline in front of me, so I can do some of the impact series on that.
Gonna take all the measurements and new before pics on Saturday. Woohoo!!!
