Hello All
In late October I was riding my bike on a trail and fell off landing hip first into my handlebars. I had some bruising and swelling for a couple of days and some lingering aches. These aches were especially noticeable when I would be running down steep trails, it oftentimes felt like my leg was going to give out, as if it was weak and unstable. This pain seemed to emanate from my hip and travel down the front of my upper leg to my knee.
Come late November and the ache was gone. Then, while running on some hard packed snowshoe trails, I lost balance and landed with all my weight on the same leg mentioned above. My knee popped and my leg buckled. I went to the Dr. and he diagnosed it as a knee subluxation. I took three weeks off of running and returned when the pain and swelling went away. I found some nice running show shoes and stuck to snowmobile packed Forest Service roads.
Last weekend, while on an ice-climbing guiding trip, I was hiking down a pretty well packed trail to the waterfall and as I was stepping down the above referenced injured leg gave out and now I have an ache in both my hip and knee, especially when I run. It feels like what was happening in the first paragraph above. Weakness and instability in that leg that seems to start from the outside of the hip and radiate down the front of the leg to the knee. I have gone through a host of exercises and tests and nobody seems to know what is happening. To give you all some reference I have full range of motion, can do squats, lunges, step-ups, calf raises, etc... without pain. What I have found really aggravates it is sitting in a ski lift chair and trying to raise and lower my leg like I was sitting in a leg extension machine at the gym as I am riding up to the top. There is no pain when I extend the knee, however when I lower it back down is when it is really feels like it is going to give out. It seems like this weakness or instability, when doing the extensions, is happening right above my knee, but I can also feel it in the hip. When skiing it will flare up if I make a really sudden motion going downhill. Skinning uphill causes no discomfort.
I would not say that the pain is debilitating. I can still walk fine up and down stairs and in a straight line. Since I live in a small mountain town our PTs are overbooked so I thought that I would reach out to the forum to see if anyone might have any ideas about what it might be. I was thinking hip bursitis, especially since I had a hard fall on my bike and landed directly on my hip socket, but maybe something else is happening?
Thanks everyone.