My Knee Pain

Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine.

For many years I had chronic on-and-off pain in my left knee, accompanied by cracking sounds, which probably was due to me doing front squats with bad form (bouncing, leaning forward) when I was younger.  While sometimes I would feel nothing, other times the pain would be moderately severe, particularly when walking up and down stairs, or doing squats.

The pain is now 99% gone, very, very rarely, maybe once every 4-6 months, I’ll get a very brief and weak twinge – I honestly cannot remember the last time it happened.  I can now do squats (proper form of course) without any pain. 

The pain went away after I started increasing certain activities – walking, walking up stairs (sometimes two at a time) quickly at work as part of cardiovascular fitness, jumping rope, etc.  I believe these activities strengthened certain muscles around the knee, helping to stabilize it, and perhaps correcting some muscle imbalances there.  Now, most likely, whatever damage I had there was slight, and perhaps exacerbated by an imbalance, so that this exercise regimen – done for cardiovascular fitness not with any prior intent to help the knee – had the side effect of helping with the knee problem. 

Other people may have more severe damage and so the activities I did may make them worse; of course, always consult with your physician.  Some people may require surgery if they have serious damage.  I’m just reporting that what I did, helped.