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Friday 16 July 2010

Knee update

Bit of a long post.
Last week I went to see my GP about my knee problem. She examined the knee and finally suggested that I see a physiotherapist.
While I was there I updated her on what has been happening with regards to my transitioning. She was happy with what has happened and my plans going forward.
The day after seeing my GP I contacted the private health people that we use through work and got the Ok to see a physio. One of my colleagues had been to see someone that they found to be very good so I phoned him and left a message asking him to phone back. The following day I did this again. Even as I write this I've not heard back from him.
However, I happened to be talking with another colleague who told me of another physio that he has used and knows treats a lot of triathletes.
I rang them and was able to get an appointment for the following day immediately.
At the appointment, Sarah, the physio had me go through various movements while standing and walking then had me hop up on the couch.
After moving my leg around a bit she performed a couple of tests to see how strong my legs muscles were.
Right leg - fine. No problems at all.
Left leg - well the conversation went a bit like this.
S: Ok, push against my hands. (Slight pause) I said push.
Me: I am!
S: Ok, now pull against my hands. (Another slight pause) I said pull.
Me: I am pulling.
At this point she had me straighten my leg while she lifted it up of the couch. There was a distinct shake in the leg as it was held there.

The upshot of all this was that for some reason my left leg is a lot weaker than my right. Pretty surprising considering the amount of running I've done over the years as well as swimming and cycling in the last year.
Sarah has given me some exercises to do which will strengthen my leg, in the meantime I'm not running but will be spending time on swimming and cycling.

In light of the problem with my leg I've pulled out of the race I had planned for the beginning of August rather than run the risk of making the situation with the leg worse.

After thinking about it over the weekend and talking it through with Sarah it appears that all of this goes back to a marathon I did in 2007. Towards the end of the race I did a sprint past some of the supporters for the charity I was running for. About 100 yards later I pulled up with a sharp pain in my left thigh. Whatever I did healed itself but if Sarah is right then I've been favouring my left leg with the result that its remained weaker while my right leg has gotten stronger.

Hopefully, now that I know what is wrong I can work on putting it right and get back to doing something that I enjoy in time for some races next year.

2 comments:

  1. Just carry on with the exercise honey and you'll be back to normal.

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  2. I'm going to aim to get it sorted for the beginning of next year so that I can start racing again in January or February.
    I contacted someone about Pilates classes this week and hopefully should be able to do some classes from September. There's a class that she does at the moment which is mainly women but has one man who has been once so far. Should be fun.

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