My Hips Don't Lie

Sorry for pulling a Shakira on you, but it's true, they don't lie.

I apologize for not updating my blog at all recently. I didn't really feel like posting anything throughout December, and then in January, I kept forgetting to write up anything. Well, it's time to change that.

I last left off in early December, just shortly before I had a doctor's appointment. It was simple physical/check up exam to see how everything was going. I NEEDED to raise a question about my knee, because nothing was getting better, and it's necessary to have healthy legs if I ever want to run again. Currently, I am not running, as my knee(s) just can't handle it. Now, I feel discomfort every single day. I put up with it, but when it does hurt, my knee can hurt pretty badly. So anyways, everything is good in the health department. I got a blood test to see how things have improved after losing so much weight, and things are looking really good. It was amazing to see my test results only improve. But I also asked about my knee. He said that it appeared that there was some sort of alignment issue with my femur and kneecap, and that I should go to Physical Therapy to get a better idea on what's wrong and what I should do to fix it. He also recommended to check out a chiropractor to see if that could help at all. Needless to say, I did both.

About two weeks ago, I finally made the appointments for PT and a chiropractor. I kept putting it off due to working during the break, and that I just didn't feel like calling to make an appointment. However, the day I moved back to Corvallis, I spent a lot of time walking up and down stairs, and it really got to me knee. That night was the worst pain my knee has endured. I had to get a brace the next day, and I quickly called to set up the appointments. I went to the chiropractor first, and she said that she agreed with my doctor -  there was an alignment issue with my femur and kneecap, and because of that, it was causing a lot of inflammation behind my kneecap, which prevented it from healing, even while resting for long periods of time (for example, an entire month, i.e. winter break, of doing no physical exercise). She wanted to see me a few times for some adjustments to help quicken the pace of my recovery. No complaint there, the adjustments are nice. Relieves some pressure, and just makes my legs feel a bit better in general. So I've now had 3 appointments with her, and she says that she can notice the different in how she adjusts my tibia or fibula, I forget which she said), and has noticed some looseness (that's good) in my hips. Well, the reason things have gotten a bit better is due to my PT.

I got the complete news at my first PT appointment. My femur is malaligned with my kneecap, meaning that when it bends, my femur is bending inwards. It's not something I have ever noticed, but when I do a squat, my knees bend inwards very slightly. But the fact that I've always been a heavy guy, and that slight alignment issue has caused some serious pain issues. The reason why my femur is doing that? My hips. That is why my hips, in fact, do not lie. Apparently, I have, well, in proportion to my body size and the rest of my leg muscles, week hips. In reality, they're about average for someone smaller than me. But this means that my hips aren't able to support my femur properly, thus, causing me knee issues. This isn't an uncommon problem, and in fact the common name for it is runner's knee. It's exactly what I thought the problem was prior to seeing the doctor, so it was nice to know that I was at least correct on my self-diagnosis.

A part of me almost wished that I needed surgery or something, just for a quick fix, some recovery time, and voila. The main reasoning was because of the fact that I could rest for an entire month and my knee would get worse. But, I'm on the right track. I need to strengthen my hips. I started off with a few basic exercises for my hips/upper legs and after two weeks, felt no difference. I had another PT appointment yesterday for a check up. Firstly, they didn't expect much of an improvement after two weeks, considering that it should take 4-6 weeks before I could think about running again. Secondly, I found out that I wasn't really working my muscles as well as I should have been. I needed to really emphasize a few muscles while holding a certain exercise. So now I'm doing those properly, and they added two more exercises to my repertoire -  two different kinds of squats. I hadn't realized that when I was doing squats previously, that my knees were bending in slightly, and now I'm supposed to make sure that when my legs bend, that my knee is pointed straight. So in order to do that, I have to purposefully feel as if I'm pointing them outwards. It feels slightly abnormal, since it's just slightly different than what I'm used to. But I can notice the difference. It's working my muscles differently, and it puts less strain on my knees, WHICH IS SO NICE. I can still feel the slight discomfort in my knees today that I always feel, but everytime my knees bend, I'm conscious about keeping them aligned properly (straight, to my middle toe or so) and I can tell that there isn't as much pressure on my bad knees. Also, the grinding noise that I've had for over a year now, is diminished when I bend my knees properly. So it looks like I should be seeing some real improvement over the next two weeks. I'm sure hopeful to see improvement. I need it.

That's all I will talk about for now. Basically, my knees are still screwed up, and it's all because of my stupid hips. Strengthening them should fix the problem, but it'll take some time and a lot of effort. Each workout takes around 45-60 minutes, just for my hips. But it's all for the better. I hope to be running by March. It should really help with weight loss. Speaking of which, I have gotten back into losing weight successfully, and I'll touch on that topic in my next post. But until then, stay fancy.