Hi,
I've been having some lateral knee pain for the last month, right to the outside of my left knee, maybe 1-1.5" to the side of the knee cap, and it radiates down under the knee too. It seems deeper within the knee, rather than superficial. My knee also feels unstable when I run, especially when I turn, and definitely both uphills and downhills. Also, rotating my foot seems to hurt it.
This all started one day when I was doing elliptical. I put the incline really high--12%, and the resistance at level 10 so I would get a really good workout (probably not a good idea, since I had a rough workout the day before). 10 minutes in, I started having lateral knee pain. I figured it was a result of the hard effort the day before, and shrugged it off, and kept going for 60 minutes. The next days after that were really painful, but me, not being so smart, hobbled through it, until a hilly workout the next week, and I had trouble walking. I took a week off then, and then began building up again. It hurt, really bad, the first few runs (actually, the time off didn't seem to help me one bit), but it has since slowly subsided and seemed to loosen up. I found that a knee brace kept the pain at bay. I am running about 50 mpw right now, no pain with the knee brace, but it limits my motion and speed. However, when I don't wear it, I have pain the first 10 mins or so, and then for the rest of my run, my knee feels unstable. I really want to be able to race soon, and race without the knee brace, since it is so restricting in motion and speed. It's defintely a lot better than it was a month ago, but it seems to be healing very slowly.
I'm asking for some input here--anyone have this before? Any sports medicine specialists on here? I went to the campus trainer, but she didn't seem to know much--just said that it seemed swollen and gave me some ultrasound. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated--thanks in advance.