My goal is to serve as an example of how to work with a knee injury in yoga, training and other sports. This is my life’s work. I hope to be able to be of help for others on this path!
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How I focus on injured knees
I want to help people with injured knees. After injuring my knee I went directly to a sports medicine specialist (orthopedic surgeon) and physical therapist. This approach has been both positive and negative so I continue looking for different methods for healing, strengthening and improving the knee and its integration to the body.
There are many reasons why knees can become painful. Osteoarthritis until recently was thought to be hereditary or caused by being overweight. As the boom in sports medicine occurred over the last 40 years and the repercussions of surgeries are being documented, increasingly knee surgery is considered a last resort or not advised at all due to its serious damage to cartilage and cause of osteoarthritis.
What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is a type of joint disease that results from breakdown of articular cartilage (the cartilage covering bone surfaces) and underlying bone. The most common symptoms are joint pain and stiffness, which in time may become constant. Other symptoms may include joint swelling and decreased range of motion. Symptoms appear over time.
Causes include joint injury, trauma to the joint, abnormal development and inherited factors. Osteoarthritis is believed to be caused by mechanical stress on the joint and inflammatory processes. It develops as cartilage is lost and the underlying bone wears away, becomes deformed, and bony spurs grow. The space between the bones is lost with the reduction in cartilage and tissues. As pain makes it difficult to exercise, muscle loss may occur.
Whatever the cause of knee pain or injury, most health resources, from Western medicine to holistic methods (yoga, rehabilitation) concur that exercise and movement in balance with a healthy lifestyle helps.
Figure 1 from Biomarkers in osteoarthritis – Semantic Scholar. You can see the bone-on-bone effect of the severely osteoarthritic knee.