Archive for January 10, 2012

Health Project: Knee and shoulder: Part I: The Knee

gluteus_mineus10_femoral_tibial_anteversionI finally saw and orthopedic doctor. Let’s start with the knee.

Apparently, I was born with “femoral anteversion”. The thigh bone sits crooked in the hip joint. I was pretty badly pigeon toed as a baby and had to wear shoes that pointed my feet outward while I slept. This straightened the legs but not the twisted hip.

My body compensated by developing a strong gluteus maximus and exterior leg muscles. But the flip side is a relatively underdeveloped gluteus medius, minimus and interior leg muscles plus a tight and nearly inflexible IT band. The end result is unnatural torque on my knee. The knee cap is pulled to the right.

laying-hip-abduction-1The strength difference between the gluteus maximus versus the medius and minimus is pretty funny. If I lay on my side with my leg in the air (like the photo) and the doctor pushes down on the leg while I resist he can’t get it to budge. He could practically sit on it. The therapist thought I was holding on to the table for leverage – hehe.

But when I twist the top hip slightly towards the floor and do the same test a toddler could push my leg down with one hand. My ‘big’ butt is overpowering my ‘little’ butts. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, the pain is caused by the knee cap moving back and forth outside of its track. The fixes are:

1. to loosen up the IT Band by stretching and rolling it out
2. to strengthen my ‘little’ butts and interior leg muscles
3. to massage and ice the outside of the knee

With a lot of boring tedious therapy (and some patience) I could be running, jumping, and mountain biking pain-free in 2-4 months. Sigh. But that’s just the knee. There is also my shoulder to contend with. I have to schedule an MRI to determine whether I have a labral tear.

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