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RELIEVE KNEE PAIN WITH JUST YOUR HANDS
I will be 60 this summer and for 40 of those years I have played competitive rugby. I have been relatively injury free but the game is hard on the knees. I had one small arthroscopic surgery, but from when I was 50, my orthopedic surgeon showed me the X-ray of bone hitting on bone and he said he would give me a knee replacement whenever I couldn’t stand the pain. I sought a second opinion and received the same answer.
I felt that a knee replacement was inevitable. Even my sister, who never played rugby, had both knees replaced by age 60. But because I have a high pain tolerance, I don’t get Novocain at the dentist, and with the help of what aging ruggers call vitamin I (ibuprofen), I was able to get by. My left knee hurt when I ran on it, but worse, it hurt more later as bone on bone friction caused “water” on the knee. The pressure made it difficult to even drag my knee into the car on bad days.
It wasn’t only exercise that caused the pain. When on vacation doing what I call the museum trudge, walking on concrete caused a lot of swelling. I was about to give up and get the knee. Then I met Alice Brown on January 22th at an inventors conference. She spotted me as a candidate for the In the Groove Rehabilitative Knee Orthosis/brace, fitted me on the spot, and I have hardly taken the knee brace off since.
Within a week I could feel the difference. I became eager to run even in this worst winter of the decade. The pain subsided some, but did not go away entirely. But the “Water” on the knee syndrome lessened immediately. After a month of use I realized that I hadn’t taken an ibuprofen in three weeks.
I could feel an adjustment in my muscles, and after 6 weeks that is still going on. But now, even when I do not wear the brace, the knee feels much better. I’m continuing to test it by running on trails and by doing 400 meter runs, (I can’t call them sprints anymore) on the high school track. Last weekend I felt I was ready for the ultimate test, playing rugby. I played the second half of an open match. That meant that the players were in their 20s and 30s. The match was played in the rain on an artificial turf field. I can’t think of a tougher surface. While I was on the losing side, I felt like a winner on Sunday morning. Except for the bruises from tackles, my left leg felt so good that I went for a two mile run in the cold rain.