Another It band friction syndrome problem

Hi all, 

After fully training for vlm I had to defer my place the week before due to severe knee pain, I've been seeing a physio for last 7 weeks doing lots of strengthening excercises and stretching, still no improvement so decided to pay for an mri which shows soft tissue swelling in keeping with iliotibial band friction syndrome, physio and gp have both agreed on cortisone injection into the knee. (Due to have this in 2wks)

I am so frustrated with this injury have gone from running 50 miles a week to literally 4/5 miles if I'm lucky!

can anyone please tell me they have gotten over this injury and are back to running properly and how they did it? Really fed up, i'd give anything to run for longer than 20 mins!! 

Thanks

Katy

 

 

Comments

  • booktrunkbooktrunk ✭✭✭

    I only do half your distance on average but i had a week and a half off a couple of times and it was still there, I tried a few days of icing it daily, it helped a lot.

    in the end I just kept running, I still have days where going downstairs is a struggle, but for me it's just settled down.

    it's there as a background thing but it doesn't stop me doing anything.

    i've also got a bike hoping doing different exercises via the bike might help relax it.

  • SlowkoalaSlowkoala ✭✭✭

    Katy, I had knee problems 2 years ago which I think was ITBS. After 3 months of physio, I was back running. The physio was mainly strengthening exercises. I didn't run at all during the 3 months. The good news is that when I got back to running I felt stronger than ever. I also completed my first HM and then full marathon (VLM this year). The bad news is that a few weeks after completing the VLM, my knee problem has come back and the physio thinks this is ITBS. However I think because this time I rested as soon as the knee pain came, I will hopefully not have to rest as long as before. Lesson learnt - keep up the exercises even when you are injury free and do Pilates regularly as I think this really helps. Some people say foam rollering really helps, others swear by sports massages so these might be worth trying.

  • Hi Katy, I started with outer left knee pain in the final few weeks of training for my first half-marathon on 3rd March. At that point it wasn't enought to prevent me running but at about mile 11 of the run the pain came on really bad and it was only through adrenaline, I'm sure, that I was able to finish the race.

    Following the race, I wasn't able to run any kind of decent distance at allm soemtimes in after as few as eight-minutes of running I was hobbling home, the pain was so bad, I had to pretty much walk without bending my bad leg!

    I went to a physio and he said it was IT Band issues...I was new to running, hadn't done any strength work, I had believed so long as my legs were strong then that was all that mattered.

    Not the case...so the physio gave me various strength work to do.

    He did say I could continue to run, but I actually couldn't, it hurt too much, so I stopped for a couple of weeks, so not too long really, and focussed on strength work (a mixture of lunges, squats, planks, etc), basically anything that targeted the gluteus medius specifically, which had been identified as not working due to them being weak.

    After a couple of weeks I went back out but did laps round my block, so if / when the pain started I wouldn't have far to hop home!

    For the first few runs over the next couple of weeks I stuck to around 5k runs, not wanting to push it, and never carrying on if the pain flared up (I sometimes felt a niggle but not what I'd call a 'pain').

    I religioulsy did my strength work as I could tell that it was working, which was incentive to carry on.

    Touch wood, for the past six weeks or so my knee hasa been absolutely fine, and I'm building back up slowly, not just picking up where I left off by doing 13 miles, I don't want to get overly carried away and risk injury again.

    It's been a lesson to me to not rush things (I reckon I had the excitable new runners syndrome!) so making myself hang back and do a good mixture of distances and paces.

    So in my instance, my IT Band cleared up and I feel a lot stronger generally than before...it was because of the ITBS that I found out that I had a weak core and glutes, which allowed me then to change that.

    I hope you're back out running stronger soon Katy.

    Mark

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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