Time for a quick update while it’s Christmas holidays and I actually have chance to write something other than at 11pm at the end of a day’s work when my brain is addled (let’s be honest, my brain is probably addled for other ‘festive’ reasons right now but hey, that’s consistency of sorts, right?)
Unfortunately I still can’t give a full update that includes the wider context – I should be able to do that towards the end of January – but for now I thought I’d focus on how the knee’s behaving and some musings on hypermobility as a possible contributory factor to ACL failure.
By way of functional update, the knee itself is still nowhere near where I’d like it to be. It’s not the easiest to judge objectively anyway and I’m consciously not pushing it at the moment but I can say that while I’ve gained some flexibility (good thing), it’s definitely looser than it was (bad thing). If I swing my leg forward and up (think doing the Can Can) or from the outside inwards in front of my body (with a straight leg) there’s now a consistent clunk on the posterior medial corner as though the lower leg is not being held in place properly. My IT Band is crazy tight (and yes, I’m being a wimp about trying to loosen it off), the night-time pain is still there so I’m trying to find ways to make that more comfortable and, while I’ve been focussing on the fact that at least it hasn’t given way for nearly a year, it shifted in and out of joint again last week as I was gently walking across the kitchen, which is a Christmas present I didn’t particularly want.
At some point I will go and get it looked at again – hopefully the delay will make more sense when I can update properly in Jan – but for now I’m just keeping tabs and focusing on finding ways to stay active that don’t upset it too much.
So, without being able to do too much practically to improve things, I have been musing on why it’s like it is, despite having done everything I’ve been told to, and whether I should ever expect it to get strong enough to enjoy the kinds of activities I’d like to.
One thing’s for certain, even if I eventually have to concede that there’s nothing more we can do to ‘fix it’, I don’t think I’ll ever stop trying to find out more about it, to understand why it is like it is and I guess, ultimately, identify ways of potentially improving it.
Which brings me to hypermobility...