Update on the knees

After blogging on Monday, I cruised over to Tall Girl Running to see what kind of humorous run she'd had lately.  She's always got a good one.  She talked about her IT band problems she had right before the Ogden Marathon.  Her physical therapist told her to get a foam roller and work her IT bands that way.  The chiro had told me about them and suggested that if I kept having problems, I might want to invest in one.  He gave me a temporary one that's just a piece of a floaty noodle, like the kind the kids take to the pool.  You lay on it and roll over the affected area.  Anyway, after reading Tall Girl's success story, I ordered mine.  No one really knows the pain or the frustration of IT band problems unless you've been through it.  You can't run through it, and if you try, you just prolong the time you're out of the game.  4 years ago I was so frustrated not being able to find someone who could fix me.  I was frustrated with the surgeons that were so willing to give me cortisone shots and not really fix it or just offer to fix it with surgery if I didn't get better.  So when someone has been through it and gotten it fixed, I listen.  I found out about ART therapy with chiropractors through a yahoo group for people with IT band problems. 

 

I had an appointment to see how the knees were doing so I tried the 2 miles again just to see if it was any better than Monday.  After a mile they were still doing good and I was planning to add on a few blocks at the end.  Just as I was planning where to go, the left knee shot pain that stopped me in my tracks.  I stretched, but it just wasn't helping.  So I walked home.  I stretched really good and then got in the shower and headed down for my appointment.  

As we talked about how I was not any better and how this was the worst pain I've been in since 4 years ago, he told me that he didn't realize how bad it was and that he turned me loose too soon and it was probably going to take longer than he'd hoped for.  Last year I could feel the tightening and some pain and he fixed it relatively quickly.  This time it's much worse.  He worked it really good and they did ultrasound and ice.  I'm not supposed to run for 7 days.  There's a new guy there who's interning and he's been working with me as well.  He has worked at the Iron Man competitions for the last couple of years and has seen it all.  He wants to watch me run sometime to see if there's anything in my form that's contributing to my problems.  That should be interesting.  Can't you just see that!  Maybe I should try Jessie's wild running technique when I do that!  I'm still o.k to do weights and anything that doesn't aggravate the problem, which last time it was this bad, was pretty much everything.  So I'll keep on working on my eating and concentrate on lifting weights and see how it goes.  Today is day 5 of eating good.  I've had this gorgeous peach pie around since Tuesday.  Normally I would be eating it for breakfast with a multivitamin but I'm doing good so far.  I had a bite of Janzen's last night and a bite the night before.  Remember I said eating good, not perfect.  The cravings kind of set in yesterday when I went to the store hungry.  I'm pretty proud of myself for doing good.  It's not too often that I have this kind of self control.  Maybe I'm making up for the lack of running.