Knee injuries

[Willin']

Well my knee is looking hopeful. After a really bad night with it I have been keeping to my ice pack then compression routine and there's been a rapid improvement so I am hopeful that it will clear up quickly with no major damage. I am in full sympathy with those who have serious knee conditions.

 

[Scimitar]

I second the hot/cold gel packs. I totally forgot I had some and it wasn't improving very much, but improvement was immediate once I started using the packs. I found the hot pack alone, three or four times a day, was enough to make a huge difference.

 

[morphix]

It seems I'm not alone from all the posts this thread has generated. Knee injuries seem to be much more common than I thought. It's good to know that cycling can be a helpful thing rather than making a condition worse though..you learn something new everyday here. Electric bikes have another niche market then, people with osteoarthritis of the knee and knee injuries!

Hope you're feeling better Willin' and on the road to recovery..

 

[Geebee]

Another joint that it helps a lot with is Arthritis in the hip, it reduces the pain in mine by a massive amount, as opposed to walking which does the opposite.

 

[Hugh]

Thought I'd add my 2 penn'orth.

Did my right knee in 20 years ago doing yoga mad and after about 3 years I couldn't crouch or kneel. Sports physio diagnosed torn cartilage; had it done, everything ok again for 3 or 4 years, when it had to be redone, and so on, until I'd had 4 ops in 10 years. Then, 9 years ago, I was in an accident in which I nearly lost my right leg altogether, and in which knee problems were the least of the bother.

Finally got rid of rods, plates etc after years of ops and aggro, and now have permanent limp with one leg shorter than the other. The dodgy knee has stood up to all this very well however, and cycling is still easier than walking, by a long way.

I reckon 2 key things to preserving knees are what others have already said:

1. High cadence in a lowish gear, rather than pushing away on a higher gear in the feeling that it's harder work so must be doing you good. I know everyone has their own natural pedalling cadence just as they have a natural walking pace - the trick is to match cadence and gear so it's reasonably effortless (other than hill-climbing of course ).

2. Use pedals that allow you to twist your feet around on the pedals a bit. I've always had a tendency to turn one foot in more than the other when pedalling, it;'s just what feels most comfortable. I've used Shimano double-sided pedals for ages. They're good because you can ride in civvy shoes as well as cycling ones, and the SPD clip system allows enough adjustment to provide a reasonable range of float without being too loose.

The final, crucial point is to have the saddle at the correct height and in the correct relation to the bars and pedals - i.e. not too far back or forwards and at a height that allows almost full extension of the leg. Anything less and you end up putting far too much strain through the knee joint. I reckon at least half the people I see on bikes have the saddle too low. I can understand it for kids - feeling of safety, but its bad news for adults.

Here endeth the lesson...........

 

[morphix]

wow doing Yoga of all things! That's supposed to make you more supple and less prone to joint injuries init? It just shows how if you do things incorrectly you can do more harm than good.

 

[Hugh]

Too right. I was warming up to try and do the Lotus position (still never done it!), and had my right knee up somewhere around my ear when I heard quite a loud bang (at least that's what it seemed like) as the meniscus split. I didn't know then of course - just had a dodgy knee for a few days. But, over the next 2 or 3 years, it went rapidly downhill. I went to see the physio at the local football club and as soon as I walked in to his room he said 'right meniscus' without even looking at it. Common injury among footballers because of twisting. You also hear tales of American footballers who have to live in bungalows when they retire as their knees are so shot........

 

[morphix]

While on the subject of health matters on this thread... water..

I saw this unusual health site over the weekend which proposes a radically new way of looking at health and illness.. well not new, it was apparently devised by the Nazi's in 1940's in Germany and in a nutshell it basically involves measuring the energy, ph-level, and mineral levels in body to find imbalances which they believe to be the root cause of illnesses. Anyway, I digress.. one of their sister sites with health advisors said for optimal health you should aim to drink half your own body weight in water every day. HALF. That just seems impossible to me. I weigh 59kg so that means drinking almost 25kg of water a day.. that's 125 * 200ml glasses every 12 hours (10 glasses an hour or 320ml water every 10 minutes). That just seems bizarre to me and maybe even dangerous. I doubt the body would even clear water that fast unless you were doing major exercise. What do others think? Could you drink half your body weight in water?

I know the government guideline is 8 glasses a day (400ml glasses) which is 3.2kg of water, considerably less for me than 25kg!

I'm doing an experiment to see how many 200ml glasses of water I can drink in one hour!

 

[Old_Dave]

Could you drink half your body weight in water?

When on a night out ... I do try to do that with beer

 

[morphix]

Too right. I was warming up to try and do the Lotus position (still never done it!), and had my right knee up somewhere around my ear when I heard quite a loud bang (at least that's what it seemed like) as the meniscus split. I didn't know then of course - just had a dodgy knee for a few days. But, over the next 2 or 3 years, it went rapidly downhill. I went to see the physio at the local football club and as soon as I walked in to his room he said 'right meniscus' without even looking at it. Common injury among footballers because of twisting. You also hear tales of American footballers who have to live in bungalows when they retire as their knees are so shot........

Woah. Maybe that's what happened to me, because your story sounds similar to mine.. about 3 years ago I was heavily into exercise..really addicted to it.. I would run like 4km, and then leg url weights (probably too much for me)..I was getting very fit and strong. But then after I got my bike (26" 21kg folder) I got noticed knee pain.. I don't know if it was lifting and carrying that bike up and down 2 flights of stairs to my flat every day, or purely down to the running/weights, or maybe a combination of things that contributed to the injury.. I just shrugged it off and it was only minor discomfort at the start and I carried on running and using my bike... I was using the bike very highly geared too (as a single gear, silly I know!) so that probably didn't help a knee that was trying to heal... like you, over the next two years it just got worse and worse..until about 6 months ago I noticed the knee started leaking fluid and then I was having trouble walking or bending at all. Fast forward 3 months..I went to the Dr and they said to use anti-inflammatory, keep off the knee and take Glucosamine daily.. so I've been doing that and using a stick and not doing any cycling or strenuous exercise and it's improved a bit, but still far from better...

What happened when you saw the physio did they get you on the mend or tell you anything to avoid/do?

We have a friend of the family who has the same problem as me but she's 60, with a weak knee that's leaking fluid and a bakers cyst at the back like mine..her doctor told her she was missing cartilage due to injury/ageing and she needed the cyst draining regularly plus steroid injections.

 

[flecc]

I know the government guideline is 8 glasses a day (400ml glasses) which is 3.2kg of water, considerably less for me than 25kg!

All the advice on drinking such large quantities of water have long been widely rubbished by serious researchers and medical professionals. It's just anther one of the numerous pieces of crackpot advice that pervade the subject of health. Even that government advice is well out of date and excessive, a normal diet already contains very large quantities of water.

Consider the many peoples who live in desert regions and often don't drink at all during each day as they travel. They often eat low water content dessicated foods to sustain themselves, and some of then like the nomads of Mongolia live very long lives. That latter people live for much of the year on rancid butter and low water intakes yet commonly live into their eighties and beyond. Nobody has ever told them that a high saturated fat and high cholesterol diet lacking in water intake and without five-a-day fruit and veg is bad for them, so they just live long untroubled lives.

 

[morphix]

That makes sense flecc and I guess if you look at it from a scientific point of view, the body is already 50-65% water so it has a good reserve to draw on..and it tells you when that reserve is being depleted as you feel dehydrated.

You could measure how much water the body loses from sweating and waste and determine the minimum amount you need to replace perhaps. I think these theories on more = better for water are thinking that the body needs certain minerals from water and so a continuous supply and also to remove toxins and prevent a build up.. the body is quite efficient (under normal circumstances) though at removing toxins using water in the diet as you said?

 

[morphix]

Consider the many peoples who live in desert regions and often don't drink at all during each day as they travel. They often eat low water content dessicated foods to sustain themselves, and some of then like the nomads of Mongolia live very long lives. That latter people live for much of the year on rancid butter and low water intakes yet commonly live into their eighties and beyond. Nobody has ever told them that a high saturated fat and high cholesterol diet lacking in water intake and without five-a-day fruit and veg is bad for them, so they just live long untroubled lives.

Maybe there's a genetic factor here though and an environment and diet suits one type of genetics won't be good for another...a bit like if you take a certain type of wild animal out of its natural habitat they often don't live long.

So these people who can survive in what we consider unhealthy or extreme environments have adapted over generations their bodies have adjusted... but we might feel ill quite quickly? I noticed a report during my health nutrition studies at Uni that said Indian people who come to the UK suffer much higher rate of heart disease than the rest of the population and than Indian's in India! Assuming their diets are the same, that could be due to extra stress maybe.

 

[flecc]

.. the body is quite efficient (under normal circumstances) though at removing toxins using water in the diet as you said?

Certainly true. For many people eating asparagus or beetroot and checking the urine not long afterwards shows that clearly!

 

[flecc]

Maybe there's a genetic factor here though and an environment and diet suits one type of genetics won't be good for another...a bit like if you take a certain type of wild animal out of its natural habitat they often don't live long.

So these people who can survive in what we consider unhealthy or extreme environments have adapted over generations their bodies have adjusted... but we might feel ill quite quickly? I noticed a report during my health nutrition studies at Uni that said Indian people who come to the UK suffer much higher rate of heart disease than the rest of the population and than Indian's in India! Assuming their diets are the same, that could be due to extra stress maybe.

Evolution is a very slow process though, but I accept that there will be some differences in tolerance. I just doubt they are great enough to account for the huge discrepancies.

We have to be careful about heart disease statistics, since some of the common beliefs in this respect have been debunked by the fact that the way in which such diseases are recorded vary very widely. As for those Indians, much of the population suffer shorter life spans in India but live very much longer in UK conditions, just one factor that can upset the stats. The older we get, the more likely the incidence of heart troubles.

 

[morphix]

Thinking about those Indians, it's more likely they're eating more processed foods in the UK and not exercising as much as they would in India perhaps where more natural foods are available in markets etc.. so this could be a good example of how people taken out of a certain environment has a dramatic effect on health... I expect the Indian's in India don't have a particularly healthy diet (by our standards) with highly saturated fat and lots of fried food.. yet they've adapted to survive or their environment/foods somehow off-sets the effect on the heart..which doesn't happen here. Add extra stressful living of UK into the mix = heart attacks.

 

[yselmike]

The water thing started in the 1940s when a boffin decided the humans need 2.1/2ltrs of water a day to live long and prosper that was from all sources,then fitness gurus decided that the 2.1/2ltrs was on top off what we get from food
and tea coffee etc.
I have read that some people who took Es in the noughties died from ODs on water not that I know anything about drugs.

 

[Hugh]

The physio told me what was wrong and suggested investigating surgery as an option, which I did. Other than that, I've given up trying to do the Lotus (), and take Glucosamine and cod liver oil daily, which do genuinely seem to help a bit.

 

[morphix]

The water thing started in the 1940s when a boffin decided the humans need 2.1/2ltrs of water a day to live long and prosper that was from all sources,then fitness gurus decided that the 2.1/2ltrs was on top off what we get from food
and tea coffee etc.
I have read that some people who took Es in the noughties died from ODs on water not that I know anything about drugs.

So the UK gov guidelines which fall somewhere in the middle could be an over cautious advice, like they do with vitamin intakes. I saw some research too which suggests that dehydrating radically effects work and sports performance..especially concentration. So they argue it's better to sip water slowly over time to avoid dehydration rather than to drink big glasses once every so often.

 

[flecc]

Add extra stressful living of UK into the mix

Not sure about that, anyone who uses Indian roads is going to suffer infinitely more stress than in the UK, and having no pensions, social security or NHS there won't exactly help!