Knee pain affects approximately 25% of adults, and the prevalence of knee pain has increased by almost 65% over the past 20 years, accounting for nearly 4 million primary care visits annually.
Until this past Thanksgiving, when I ran my first 5k in more than 25 years, I was also a statistic. I have avoided any jogging or running due to weakness and pain that would reoccur from a teenage growth spurt decades ago. Finally, at the age of 41, I have found the solution that no one had any answers to until now.
In 1994, I went through debilitating knee pain while dealing with Osgood-Schlatter disease, which forced me to withdraw from high school athletics. Even more demoralizing was that in the years to follow, the pain became a feeling of weakness when engaging in exercise. I was frustrated with the lack of answers to my symptoms, reluctantly began to accept my physical limitations, and doubted what my body was capable of doing. It wasn’t until decades later that I realized I was completely missing a significant piece of the puzzle – the pliability of the muscles that protect and stabilize my joints.
I want to be clear, the intent of this article is to provide clarity for those of you like myself, who have been frustrated with conventional approaches of relieving acute or chronic knee pain that has not yielded relief. It has to be noted that there is absolutely a time when you should go see a doctor, especially if you are experiencing any of the following:
- • Knee pain that is associated with an injury
- • Fever, in addition to redness, pain and swelling in your knee
- • Obvious deformity in the leg or knee
The most acute phases of my knee condition resulted in pain and swelling and I went to see a physician. After being evaluated, diagnosed, and having an MRI, imaging revealed that nothing was structurally injured with my knee. It was decided that the best approach was to stop activities, ice, and wait for the problem to resolve itself. For the rest of high-school, college, and into my adult years, my knee problems became more chronic. The pain would shift to different areas around my knee. I had tendonitis inside and outside of my knee, and a feeling of weakness below my knee. I was constantly reminded that some aspects of my childhood disease continued to exist. With normal day to day activities, knee flexion and extension felt tight and restricted.
How was it possible that conventional imaging didn’t find anything wrong with my knee and yet I was in pain? It wasn’t until I started using Delos Therapy on myself, and with the help of my colleagues, that the decades of lost hope of being able to run again were resolved. Now, as a trained Delos Therapist, I am clear about the fact that non-pliable soft tissue is dysfunctional and yet this dysfunction doesn’t show up on medical imaging. It is specifically in this area that I now specialize by restoring health to muscles, fascia and consequently the affected joints.
Dedicated frequent work to the muscles around my knee allowed the therapy to get ahead of the muscles retightening process between sessions. In the past, I thought I could make things better by stretching and forcing myself to exercise through pain and weakness. I didn’t know that when soft tissue is tight, it is incapable of being pulled apart by stretching. Furthermore, the fibrotic muscle tissue in my leg was incapable of being properly strengthened because all of the hard muscle tissue that was already working, locked in an over-contracted state, and any tissue that was pliable had to work harder to compensate for it. I now understand that fascia, the elastic connective tissue that supports the structure and transfer of energy, and allows muscles to glide without friction, had become like glue, binding all of my soft tissue together and making it immobile. The tissue around my knee was tight, that it was actually compressing the joint and causing severe inflammation around the joint capsule. No matter how much stretching or strengthening I did, nothing was having an effect to break down that tightness. In over 14 years as a massage therapist, no amount of deep tissue work had an effect either.
Delos Therapy applies systematic pressure, from multiple angles, directly into the soft tissue to stretch apart over-contracted, hard muscle tissue and the fascia that encases it all, restoring it back to its original pliable healthy state. Our muscles should always feel soft and pliable when they are relaxed and not contracting. The muscles around my knee felt hard in a resting position, signifying that the muscle fibers were permanently locked, incapable of being recruited for muscular work. What I didn’t realize was how systemic my muscular tightness had become in my leg as a whole and not just around my knee. Not only does my knee feel better now but my entire leg feels more engaged, and my knee has a feeling of space that I never felt before. I finally know how to maintain my leg muscles and how to prevent wear and tear from causing tightness. Thanks to Delos Therapy, the debilitating knee pain that I put up with for so long is a thing of the past. It was during my first run in decades that I realized I finally had answers to a problem I once considered impossible to solve.
- Decades of Knee Pain Eliminated with Delos Therapy - February 13, 2020
- My Journey to Delos Therapy - November 19, 2018