My Poor Knee

I'm getting very bored lately. My knee has been hurting for 3 weeks now so I've been cutting back on cycling to only doing RB every other day or less. This all started when I was using my trainer at home. I was pedaling out of the saddle to strengthen my muscles for standing up cycling when I felt a sudden pain in my knee. I didn't think much about it since the pain resided quickly. However, it never went away. So I got my bike fitted, cut down my cycling, tried the dubbed miracle cure 'castor oil with heating', foam roller and did plenty of stretching, strengthening my quads and loosening the IT band. I don't know if any of these helped since my knee was still hurting. I was concerned and frustrated so I went to see an orthopeidic specializing in sports injury. He did an x-ray and said that the bone structure is perfect and concluded with what I already knew, patellofemoral syndrome. I asked him many questions but his answers were always vague. Basically the visit confirmed what I already knew and so did nothing. I was pretty pissed. Instead of going to the suggested typical physical therapy where they assume everyones body behave the same and teach you simple stretching exercises that I can find online, I found a chiropractor/physical therapist who has a md and who would theoretically know the cause of the pain and tailor it to my own body instead of following text book protocols.

Today I went to see this physical therapist. It's not a very good day to go because the day before I half crashed my bike and the pain from the knee is covered by pain elsewhere. So this is what happened....I decided to go for a ride around RB yesterday afternoon. As I rolled my bike to the car park, I realized that my car wasn't there and remembered that I had driven to work and parked there! So I rode without a helmet (since it's inside the car) and in normal shoes to get my car on the road. Near the end I decided to ride on the pavement because I don't want to be struck without a helmet. Then I came around a corner. I was cornering too fast and my bike went into the lawn by the pavement. All would have being well but that area had no grass and had a ledge. So the next thing I knew, I was falling but didn't fully fall because I caught my left foot on the left pedal and the right hand caught the wall and the right thigh got scraped. My absolutely awesome bike handling skills on display. With blood from my thigh and my shin/ankle swollen I drove to RB and did my ride.....ok back to physical therapy, I told my doctor about my background and he performed some stretches and think that the pain is because I have weak ACL and maybe damaged meniscus. But I'll have to take a MRI to be certain and then he will treat me accordingly. He seems to really know what he's talking about with no BS. He told me that the orthopedics I go to classify their patients as surgery or no surgery required, and that they prefer to do surgery, if they classify you as no surgery, they will just hand you down to a physical therapist - it all makes sense now. While I was there, he asked if I want to try out body manipulation. I thought sure, I'm always up for something new. He told me to lay on my stomach and take a deep breath and let it out, then he pressed on my back so hard that it felt like I was being stepped on by an elephant - there was the accompanying cracking sound. And it hurt! He went on to straighten out my neck. He twisted it one way then the other, the same technique that one uses to dislocate someone's head from their spine. At this point I was scared for my life but found the whole thing hilarious. I accused him of trying to kill me and I even tried to get up and run away. But through all this, I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. I wonder if his other patients do this. Afterwards he asked me how I felt, I told him truthfully - that I felt like I just came back from the dead....I'm looking forward to getting the MRI and working with this doctor to fix my knee for good!