I’m a high school sophomore who started training for the XC season in June of last year, and finished the season in October like everyone else. However, during a long run up a hill sometime in September, I started to notice a burning sensation inside my knees when going uphill. I soon after started to get this same burning sensation when going up the stairs. Though I had pains going uphill towards the end of XC, I could mostly still run perfectly fine. At the end of the season I took a short break from running thinking the stair pain would go away but it didn’t. I did some light running and quad/glute exercises as my coach advised, but nothing happened. Gradually the problem would get worse to the point where I can now only run about 30 seconds without the burning sensation, and cannot bear more than around 5 minutes of easy running (I have continually been doing the glute/quad exercises and stopped running regularly for several months). I tried PT for around a month, but they were stumped after a month of taping, icing, ibuprofen, and leg exercises. I’ve also periodically been seeing a orthopedic, and got an MRI which indicated nothing wrong with the tendons or cardilage, but it did detect a small joint effusion. I’ve read up on surgery and cortisone shots but I don’t want to rush into anything and my doctor won’t tell me anything besides to “run through it.” Obviously I missed out on winter/spring track and am having doubts on next XC season too.
Thoughts?