Repetitive use injuries?

[Starfish]

And, what have you done in the way of recovery so far? Have you taken a few weeks totally off the knee? (No Tae Kwon Do, no yoga, no bike...maybe just upper body pulling in the pool, etc). Have you done the RICE (rest, ice, elevation, compression) bit religiously for awhile combined with time off it? Keeping it wrapped, staying off it, icing, all that stuff?

[liberty]

My last serious time off was in May. Two separate times. First I was out of the country for two weeks. No exercise except for climbing several flights of stairs. Didn't do any ice, etc. Second time off was at the end of June. About a week and a half. Also no ice.

I took a lot of anti-inflammatories (for knees and lower back) over the summer. Iced the knee. But didn't elevate, compress or avoid all activities.

[DrBadger]

I agree with Starfish. I think that the best thing to do right now would be to take a couple of weeks totally off from any activity while doing RICE and possibly taking some anti-inflamitories. This will give the knee a chance to recover from whatever it bothering it. It is possible that you have tendonitis, but it can be really hard to know what caused it initially, and what just aggrevated it once it was started.

After your knee has calmed down and you start to slowly add activities back in, I would go back to the LBS and talk to them about your knee and have them look at your pedals. you may want to pay for a professional fit with someone who is experienced with these things. Tell them about how your knee felt when it hurt, how your knee used to turn out when you stood before getting clipless pedals and how it doesn't anymore. It seems possible that if your knee wants to rotate out and with the new pedals you don't let it do that, that could cause some stress to the knee. I am not a Doctor, but mechanically that makes sense. It might be that you have to switch to a different kind of pedals that allow your knee to do what it would like, maybe something with a lot of float like Speedplay zeros.

Good luck! I hope your knee feels better soon and you are back on the road!

[KnottedYet]

See if your bike shop can put a forefoot medial wedge (like in Specialized BG shoes) into your current bike shoes.

[liberty]

See if your bike shop can put a forefoot medial wedge (like in Specialized BG shoes) into your current bike shoes.

Hey KnottedYet, my road shoes are Specialized BG Torch Women's... So do they already have the medial wedge in them?

When my dad found out about my knee, he told me about an old PT exercise his doctor gave him way back when. And no joke, as soon as I did the exercise, my knee felt better. Woke up the next day feeling great! I'm icing the knee too, and putting on arnica cream.

Basically the exercise is this: sit on the edge of a chair, extend your leg, and lift it higher than the height of a coffee table. Do 3 reps of 10. Once that is easy, add some weights. I obviously haven't added weights at this point, but I can do the 3 reps fine. Doing a 2 week rest period and then see how it is. Then some time afterwards, I will go pay the big bucks and get another bike fitting.

I will keep you ladies posted. Your responses really encouraged me. I seriously thought I'd have to sell my bike. Guess you don't realize how liberating biking is until you are faced with the possibility of not doing it any more. My life wouldn't end, and things would be fine. But still, I'd miss it terribly.

[sundial]

Liberty, another great exercise my pt's advised me to do was this:

Sit with your back to the wall.
Bend the right knee and bring it to the chest, clasping your knee with your hands. Keep the left knee straight.
Raise the left knee slowly off the floor about 8-10 inches. Hold for a couple of seconds. Release and slowly drop it back to the floor.
Do 25 reps, 3 sets.
Repeat with the other knee.

You might want to consider making some dietary changes as well. I noticed simple sugars will cause an inflammatory response in my joint so I stay away from processed foods and simple sugars.

Also, I drink Joint Juice which has glucosamine and vitamin c. It's endorsed by the Arthritis Foundation.

www.jointjuice.com

I hope this helps. It's no fun being sidelined due to a cranky knee.

[dreadpirate]

there's also some data to support taking glucosimine and chondroitin in a certain dosage - this may help (I've heard it's good for things beyond arthritis, and joint therapy in general).

http://arthritis.about.com/od/glucos...lucosamine.htm

How do you feel about cross-training in the interim? Using something like the elliptical, or swimming?