Knee update

[Day 19B]

So my right knee had a pretty major flare up on my walk to school today and has been hurting real bad since. I self-diagnosed on Uptodate and determined that I probably had ITBS (which, let's face it, every runner has, has had before, or will get, just like shoulder injuries in swimmers) which was later confirmed by a real life physician (hooray for going to school in a building of doctors) at a student health services appointment. So...that's a bummer. (Also, I've been to student health three times and they've all been for MSK issues this year. Can you tell that I don't do my maintenance work? Yeah, I can too...)

One of our lovely IM chief residents told me that I should probably take a week or two off and it'll probably resolve on its own, otherwise I should go see PT. Honestly though I don't know what PT can tell me that I don't already know. You can never be too strong in the lower abs and glutes, my feet pronate slightly still (even though they're way better now than they were say four years ago), I'm female, all of these things don't help my case with something like ITB. So I guess my plan is to take it day by day (because if I commit myself to taking a week off I'll probably die, I told Henry this earlier in the day, I have the patience of a squirrel on speed, and it's entirely true).

That starts with likely cutting out the ride today. Technically I think the cycling is not supposed to aggravate it too much (???) but given that I can't really walk without making my gait super weird I figure less is probably more today. Instead I'll take some time to roll out my legs and stretch tonight because the roller typically makes a big difference. The trend with this knee has been that I've woken up with it better in the morning, so another Naprosyn before bed tonight and hopefully things will just clear themselves up.

In other body-related news, my wrists are so loose. (Lol all my joints are just wrecked. They are like this all the time. Wish I had mom's magic joint stuff.) I'm a tad bit sore today but nothing bad, a little extra time to stretch will be nice though.

As for the plan moving forward: the original plan was to do a circuit dryland workout from my age group swimming days tomorrow in the morning and spend some time rowing because I haven't done that in a while and it's fun cross training. I might actually keep to that because I can bodyweight squat right now without my knee hurting at all and between that and rowing, it's no impact and doesn't simulate the kinds of movements that cause me pain, so it'll probably be fine. If it turns out that it's not fine and I have to pull the plug on it, I will. I'll assess how everything is doing during the day and decide if I want to take a trainer ride in the afternoon or something.

I think the big take home message from all of this is honestly that I have to be doing more maintenance work. Stretching and foam rolling and plyometrics and core work and stability work need to happen or I'm not going to be able to keep this little body of mine happy. But I hate that stuff. Halp. I think at this very moment, I'm willing to commit to the foam rolling thing and will let the rest of it play out from there. Let's see how the rest of this week goes.

Much love,
Jess