My Injury
By Jo-Anne RedubloWell, today is recovery day 30 for my knee injury. How did it happen?
After a 6 week hiatus from training (out of town for work) I attended
sparring class (ok, not such a good choice for my first class back). I
pretty much managed to keep up with the class and was even still attempting
to kick and slug it out until the last round for the night. I thought
"what the heck...you might as well try out fun stuff now while you
still can" and attempted to do a spinning hook kick. Everything spun
except the bottom half of my leg. It was quite a strange (and painful)
feeling. At first, I thought maybe i tripped on someone or that the muscles
in my leg just decided to give out. What it really felt like was that
my knee disappeared and the bones in my leg just slipped.
My doctor said that I probably compressed or slightly tore the cartilage
under my knee (the meniscus) and stretched out my anterior cruciate ligament
(ACL). Nothing too serious, about 3 weeks recovery time.
After about 2 and a half weeks of babying my knee (rest, ice) and taking
elk antler velvet to help rebuild some cartilage (I'm not sure if it actually
worked) I seemed to get most of the range of motion back in my knee. So,
feeling almost completely healed, I decided to play a couple of rounds
of Dance Dance Revolution.
That is when I learned that even though I may have had full range of motion
in my knee, it wasn't quite completely healed. Needless to say, I re-injured
it (since I wasn't hopped up on endorphins from sparring, it really really
hurt this time) and put myself back about a week.
I have most of the motion back in my knee now. I can't quite straighten
it all the way and it still "clicks" a bit when I bend it but
it doesn't slip as much if I put weight on it when my leg is straight.
What I've Learned from this Experience
- I'm not 18 anymore
- If what you are doing hurts, stop doing it
- I'm not invincible
Here is the link to the
knee injury information site I checked out. Be warned, you could be
grossed out if you are squeemish.
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