IT BAND SYDROME??? Please diagnose me!!!

BUMP

It may or may not be ITBS. Hard to tell. Where exactly is the pain: inside, middle, or outside of the knee? Does it lock up at all? How extreme was the knee swelling?

Yes it definitely locks up. That's what I meant by "buckling". It's hard to pinpoint the pain but I think it's mainly around the bottom left of my knee cap. Although it seems like most of the SWELLING is on upper right side of the kneecap. Go Figure.

Sounds like it could definitely be ITBS. The swelling is weird, though. However, ITBS seems to effect everyone a little differently so who knows. Comment back tomorrow after you see the doctor.

If there's instability it's probably not ITBS.

i'm getting an MRI soon...would it detect ITBS

I doubt it is ITB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliotibial_band_syndrome

My experience with most knee injuries is that rest is usually the best cure once you have inflammation. Doing leg flexions and extensions will strengthen after the inflammation goes away.

your doctor is ordering an MRI to check for cartilage damage, which is more likely given your symptoms.

someone had to do it wrote:

http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2012/02/injury-series-biomechanical-solutions.html

+1

asdfasfads wrote:

your doctor is ordering an MRI to check for cartilage damage, which is more likely given your symptoms.

This ^^ I had similar symptoms and an X-ray showed nothing. an MRI, however, showed the cartilage literally sheared off the top of my femur on a non-weight bearing area. Luckily after the surgery I was able to recover and run normally (after a year of PT)

It's hard to judged based on pain perception since everyone is different and we don't know you're history.

I'm not a doctor, but I've had ITBS several times(in fact it's bothering me now) and I think it sounds about right. If the pain was going away after a short warmup, that's a sign of tendinitis, not a tear and you probably wouldn't see it on an MRI. Locking up of the knee is very common with ITBS. Instability is not, but this may just be false characterization of the sensation on your part. Usually when I have ITBS, I start using a foam roller to loosen up the muscles around it and things get better quickly. I had a severe case once, similar to what you described(unable to run) and it took 6 weeks of no running to recover.

Just a side note, I've had probably 10 knee injuries which were bad enough that I couldn't run a step and occasionally could not bend the leg at all. Every time, the problem cleared up with 6 weeks of rest. I'm not against intervention, I've had surgery for other injuries, but I think most of these overuse injuries will heal in a month or so on their own and it's nothing to to panic over. You seem like you're freaking out. Just hoping you'll chill out a bit. It's not fun when you can't run, but chances are you'll recover 100%.

Locking of the knee doesn't usually happen with ITBS; neither does instability and especially not swelling. Why would a doctor order an MRI? ITBS is easy to diagnose without any imaging at all.