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Entry bubble Breaking down and calling the doc

By: Jess | February 19, 2009 | Category: Health

The human kneeI’m a runner, and I have a bum knee. Last summer when running hurt so much it brought me to tears, I decided it was time to see the doc. I was sent to physical therapy where I did a bunch of exercises to get things taken care of and off I went when I was fixed.

Except, it turns out I wasn’t so fixed.

So this time when the nagging pain came back, I did a little research. I punched the name of my issue into WebMD, into USA.gov, into every runner’s training resource I could find.

After reading about the symptoms and causes, and running a 5K that left me hobbling around for the rest of the weekend, I finally broke down and called a doctor.

I’m pretty sure he’ll send me for x-rays like last time to make sure nothing is structurally wrong, and then I can only hope for good news.

From what I’ve read it sounds like patellofemoral syndrome (or patellar tracking disorder) takes up to several months to heal. I’m still crossing my fingers that my doc will have some voo-doo magic that will heal me up right quick so I can run a race I’m registered for at the end of March.

I've been pretty lucky that this is the only real medical problem I've ever faced and could easily find information on it. Where do you look for advice and information when you have medical questions or need advice? I'm always interested in hearing about what resources are available.

As for my knee, cross your fingers for me and I’ll keep you posted on how the appointment goes.

| Post a Comment | View Comments [4] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: injuries   injury   jess   knee   knees   overuse   racing   runner's   running   sports  

Comments (4):

blue comment bubble Posted by Guru on February 19, 2009 at 08:03 AM EST

I hate hearing people with joint pain, because 1) it hurts 2) cartilage can't be grown back. The doctor can't tell how much cartilage you have left until a MRI is done on that joint.

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blue comment bubble Posted by Debbie on February 19, 2009 at 09:38 AM EST

The National Institutes of Health has two great resources for the public: (1) http://health.nih.gov/ and (2) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

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blue comment bubble Posted by Ward Deutschman on February 19, 2009 at 04:35 PM EST

In addition to Medline and WebMD I often use:

http://www.diseasesdatabase.com/index.asp -- another often useful take on various diseases and conditions. Often a bit more technical, as are some of the others listed below.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/ -- a more seachable source from medscape

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/ -- good entrance to the research literature, past and present. Some written in English and some written in Martian

http://www.op.nysed.gov/opsearches.htm -- and then there are the States' resources to track qualifications of medical personnel. Like this one from NY State.

w.d.

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blue comment bubble Posted by lm on February 20, 2009 at 10:09 PM EST

I always freak myself out when checking WedMD as I suddenly have diseases I hadn't considered. I prefer using NIH's http://medlineplus.gov/.

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