IT Band/Knee Pain

Thanks guys...and no kittens

Thanks guys...and no kittens have been strangled lately. TJ, I have no idea why I have always assumed you were a dude...I hope I haven't offended you with any of my comments...yet.

I have noticed in the last 2 days that the foam roller hurts less. So, I stepped it up a little. I can now apply some added pressure by placing my non-rolling leg on top of the other instead of using it to take some of my body weight.
 
Ha!  I love it when people

Ha! I love it when people think I'm a guy...then find out I'm a girl!
 
I have been absent lately,

I have been absent lately, and thought I really should check in.

Regarding a couple of the recent questions:

*Yes, sprinting has helped me too, and I've read that running faster is good for ITBS.

*I actually just ordered one of those bands yesterday--it'll be here tomorrow. I'd blogged about my ITBS, and someone commented, letting me know that he was using one and felt it was really helping. It has great reviews...definitely seems worth trying.

Okay, an update on me.

A few months ago, I blogged about how proud I was that I'd done a 14-miler and found a way to keep running despite some tightness. Please, please, please, DON'T follow my advice. :) I pushed way too hard, and after that run, my ITBS was noticeably worse.

To make a long story short, I got so frustrated, and decided to switch to walking. I've been walking instead of running for 7 weeks now. I can still tell things are not where they should be in my ITB area. I could go back to my physical therapist, and I think that would help, but for now, walking feels like the right thing.

I think my ITB/surrounding tissues will heal in time, and honestly, the slower pace has been good for my body AND spirit. I've grown to appreciate the peace of walking (I like to pray as I walk), and I plan to continue to incorporate some nice walks (30 minutes maybe), even when I get back to running. Maybe I'll just walk for half an hour and then do my normal run. And actually, once school starts, I'll have a lot of time walking my new kindergartener to and from school, so that may itself fulfill my new need for the peace of walking!

I'm still rolling (pretty much daily) and doing the exercises my PT prescribed (a couple of times a week.) I'd also been doing some cool whole-body strengthening exercises I found, but there was a lot of squatting involved, and honestly, I feel like all that squatting may have bothered my IT band. (A fellow "sufferer" mentioned this to me awhile back.) So I'm not doing squats anymore, in case that makes a difference.... I'm switching to other strengthening exercises instead.

I'm really hoping the little compression band helps. And I'm hoping and expecting that time and patience will help me get over this...then I will probably EASE back into running, listening to my body better than I did before!
 
Welcome back, Beth!  I was

Welcome back, Beth! I was thinking about you the other day. I hope this band works for you too. This injury of yours has been a real bugger. I wish it would pack up and leave once and for all. We have an Ask the Docs forum, so if you have any questions for them, please do ask. It's good to hear from you.
 
Thanks, TJ! I got the Pro-Tec

Thanks, TJ! I got the Pro-Tec IT Band Wrap today so I'll be sure to report back. :)

Also, the wrap came with a little "Knee Injury Guide" brochure, and it suggested this exercise for those with ITBS:

Wall slide (to strengthen medial quads): "Sit" by sliding down a wall to 90 degrees (max) while squeezing a ball between your knees. Hold 10-60 seconds. Do 5-10 reps.
 
Well, I may as well make an

Well, I may as well make an update as well for anyone else looking for ITBS answers.

Bottom line: I have no answers.

I took a little over a week off with no running. I ordered one of those ProTech ITB straps as well and it arrived....but with no directions. Luckily I found a few videos and tips online via Dr. Google and Professor YouTube.

I have continued to foam roll like a mad man. I do stretches, weight lifting, etc. targeting the glutes, hips, thighs, hamstrings, etc. I am continuing to swim for cardio purposes although I place swimming laps one circle of hell below running on a treadmill. At least my swimming form is getting better I suppose. I've even started a regimine of trying to do a deep squat (and holding it flatfooted) for 10 minutes at a time...which for me is much harder than I would have thought, but Abide suggested it and anything he suggests I try because he has a cool avatar. Here's an example of that exercise if you're curious (see the bottom video):

http://www.mobilitywod.com/page/59

Here's the bad news...I tried to do a short run 2 days ago after taking about 10 days off from any endurance running, but couldn't even manage a mile. At about the .75 mile mark I could feel the knee pain coming on strong. I had to stop and start walking. After about 1/4 mile walk the knee wasn't hurting just feeling a little funny, so I decided to try a few sprints. This is much harder on asphalt for me than a nice grass field by the way. Anyway, I made two attempts at sprinting about 50 yards but the knee pain was there and wasn't going away. I ended up walking the rest of the way back home, and then started the whole process over with ice, motrin, etc. I wonder if I had been on a nicely manacured soccer field if the sprints would have cleared up the pain.

I did wear the ProTech ITBS strap on my attempt at running and obviously it didn't work for me. I had read other posts where some people had great results and others had zero success. I may give it another try or two, but I'm afraid I'm going to fall into the zero success category.

Two days later, my knee feels fine and I have no pain. My mind tells me I could go out and do a long run right now...unfortunatley my ITBS does not agree.
 
talonraid--I'm so sorry to

talonraid--I'm so sorry to hear that!

For me the biggest thing has been really changing my attitude away from "I've got to run!" to "It's okay to take time off." Unfortunately it's turning into more time off than I'd wanted, but I figure there's a good chance it'll pay off in the end. I miss running, but I enjoy walking for different reasons.

I do think if I went back to my original physical therapist there's a good chance his ART (Active Release Technique) would reduce my recovery time. But for me I finally just figured...I needed to slow down, and that was okay. It's amazing; I'm finding life can indeed have meaning even if I'm not running. :)

YES--I want to run again, and I expect to! But for me, I think I messed mine up bad enough that it's just going to take quite awhile before it's really back to normal. And...that's sorta okay.

I really hope you can figure out what works for you!!
 
You crack me up, TR, in a sad

You crack me up, TR, in a sad sort of way. :-( I'm sorry you're having to go through this. This sucks! ITBS is one of those very difficult injuries to get over, but it can happen, it just takes longer, so remember that. DON'T GIVE UP!

Have you seen a sports doctor or therapist about this? Have you sought alternative treatments, acupuncture, etc.?

Try what Beth said about the wall squats, similar to what Abide and his very cool avatar has suggested. I remember doing these at the gym, and they are killer. Get a balance ball if you don't have one. They're not that expensive nowadays. Good luck! And please keep us posted.
 
Barefoot TJ wrote:You crack

Barefoot TJ said:
You crack me up, TR, in a sad sort of way. :-( I'm sorry you're having to go through this. This sucks! ITBS is one of those very difficult injuries to get over, but it can happen, it just takes longer, so remember that. DON'T GIVE UP!

Have you seen a sports doctor or therapist about this? Have you sought alternative treatments, acupuncture, etc.?

Try what Beth said about the wall squats, similar to what Abide and his very cool avatar has suggested. I remember doing these at the gym, and they are killer. Get a balance ball if you don't have one. They're not that expensive nowadays. Good luck! And please keep us posted.



Hey TJ and Beth,

I'll try to answer some of the questions first. That wall ball squat is one that I do in the gym on my leg days. It's one of my favorites. I actually do quite a few exercises using the exercise ball and the BOSU ball as well. Anyone can look cool using a BOSU ball...even me.

I actually did manage to get an appointment for this coming Monday with my civilian doctor's office. It's with the PA, but that's fine with me. I fully expect to either be referred to a specialist or maybe even a referrel for some PT. I've had a couple of deep tissue massages where I had the lady concentrate on the legs and IT band, but no accupuncture, chiropractor or other treatments yet.

I know that time off would probably allow the injury to heal, but of course just like everyone else I don't want to do that just yet. I've read a number of success stories where people were able to keep training while they recovered. I still hold out hope I can be one of those. I've read just as many horror stories though.

Beth, I hope you heal and can get back to running as quickly as possible. I'm also glad you've found a calm place in the midst of the ITBS storm. I'm just not completely ready to take the time off yet. It may come to that eventually, but part of my problem is I had three big races I was really looking forward to doing this year and things were progressing so wonderfully until this injury. Bottom line is I got my heart invested in these races it's not ready to relinquish control yet.

I'm honestly not opposed to taking a steriod injection if I can get that either. I know many people don't like the idea of better living through pharmaceuticals, but I really don't have a problem with it if it can help me. I had a shoulder injury a couple of years ago that one doctor said needed surgery and another one took a look at it, popped me with a steroid injection and it's never given me another problem. So, if it could help in this case, I'm all for it.

TR
 
Hey, if a shot will help you,

Hey, if a shot will help you, then go for it. I think they become a problem once you've become a human pin-cushion, like me. My hubby had pulled something in his shoulder too a few years ago. He got a cortisone shot that didn't work. He thought it felt like she had nicked his shoulder bone. He got a second shot, and that one did the trick. He has had no problems with his shoulder since. So, if you need the shot, get the shot.

I forgot. What is your mode of transportation, minimal or barefoot? Where you bare or minimaly shod when this injury took place? Refresh my old memory please.
 
Hey TJ,I'm with you on the

Hey TJ,

I'm with you on the shot deal. If a shot will reduce the swelling/pain in the bursa long enough for me to start running some shorter distances again, I'll gladly start ramping up from the beginning again.

When did I get the injury? That's a very good question. I run almost exclusively barefoot (skin to ground). On the 4th of July, I did a 4 mile run in VFFs due to the rough terrain (Race review: http://barefootrunners.org/course-review/freedom-day-4-miler) and the run had a bunch of smaller hills and one big hill, which I almost never train for in my area. I didn't have any knee pain on that run, but the knee felt...weird that night, and I blamed it on old age. The next day I went for a 4 mile training run with my usual running buddy and that's when I had my first undeniable "flare up". I was barefoot on that run.

So, I don't know exactly when the injury occured. I suspect it was a combination of the VFFs reducing my feedback on the hills that maybe allowed me to land harder that I should have combined with having little or no downhill training prior to the race. It could have just been the hills themselves I really don't know. I didn't have an "aha" moment where I could say the injury occured here.
 
It was probably from being

It was probably from being undertrained running hills.

That course you ran looked ROUGH! GEEZ!
 
I wanted to report back on

I wanted to report back on the IT Band Wrap from Pro-Tec Athletics. I've only used it once so I am not going to draw a definite conclusion, but I can at least give feedback from my first use.

Because I let my ITBS get bad enough, even walking sometimes bothers it. But I did my "long" walk this morning (about 4.2 miles total, with 20 minutes at Starbucks smack dab in the middle) and afterward my IT band was doing great. It's hard to know where to put the wrap, and I repositioned it several times. Still not sure where the *best* place is, but for now, I'm thinking the compression may be helpful. I'm not ready to try running yet; I want my IT band to feel really good for at least a week, maybe 2, before I run again.

@talonraid--I defintiely understand the feeling of not wanting to stop running, especially while training for races. This was a great time for me to take a break--no races that I'd registered for, and I also live in a place that is very warm/humid in the summer, so it's been a good time of year to walk.
 
After a comment from TJ in

After a comment from TJ in another thread, I thought this might be worth bringing up here.

I did some sprints today; about eight or ten 40 yard dashes. No pain in the knee. This is an exercise that Abide had suggested to me, so I can't take credit. I have done these a couple of other times and they don't seem to inflame my ITBS for some reason. I even did them a few weeks ago when my son and I were playing soccer and I started to feel the onset of a flare up. I did a couple of sprints at that time and the weird knee feeling I get before a typical flare up disappeared. Maybe it's magic!

Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up for anyone else dealing with ITBS. Some other things I've used to maintain cardio include swimming laps (I hate this by the way just because it's so boring). Swimming does not bother my knee at all and I will usually swim anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half. Today before the sprints I rode a recumbent bike for 60 minutes (my shoulders were sore from swimming so much) and that didn't seem to cause a flare up either, although in the first 20 minutes my knee did feel a little "tweaky", but never actually became painful.
 
Abide wrote:Hey Talon, have

Abide said:
Hey Talon, have you been sitting on your ass more lately?



Do you mean the deep knee bends your recommended? If so, yes. They are tougher than you would imagine. I never realized how long 10 minutes could be until I tried to squat (ass to ground) for 10 minutes. Brutal.

If you mean actually sitting, since the injury...I don't think I'm sitting any more than I used to. Maybe even less than before the injury.
 
I experimented with a few

I experimented with a few things today on an "attempted" run and thought I would pass them on.

I decided today that since I haven't run in a while, I would test out the leg and see what would happen. I haven't tried to run other than a few sprints (which don't hurt at all), for a couple of weeks. My plan was to complete 4 miles distance, but not all of it running. I set out to walk 1/2 the first mile, run the second 1/2, then apply whatever was needed the following miles.

Mile 1: 1/2 mile walk barefoot on concrete and asphalt no problem. 1/2 mile run, near the end of it my knee felt a little goofy like it does right before an ITBS flare up.

Mile 2: I walked for another 3/4 mile and the knee felt ok. Ran the 1/4 mile and it started feeling goofy again right at my turn around point.

Mile3: I decided I would do a couple of sprints to see what happens since I had noticed the sprints made my knee pain go away a few weeks ago when I was playing soccer. I sprinted about 200 yards. Initially my knee felt like it was going to flare up and I had a little bit of a limp. I forced myself to increase my speed and the pain subsided. I started walking a couple hundred yards and sprinting anywhere from about 75-200 yards for the rest of the 3d mile.

Mile 4: At the marker for the started of the 4th mile I decided to try and stretch my IT band a little just for kicks. My knee was feeling a little strange, so the sprints obviously didn't completely reverse the "flare up" like it had during my soccer day sprints. The side of the trail was full of rocks and brush, so I decided to do the stretch where you cross the good leg over the ITBS leg and then lean your hip as far toward the bad leg as possible. For the record, I had never felt anything from this stretch before and had detemined it to be useless. I usually attempted this at home using the wall for support. Here is the closest picture I could find to what I'm talking about:

images




I sort of rolled my hips a little bit to the front while twisting a little...hard to explain...but suddenly some muscle or tendon that felt like a cable rolled over my hip joint. It felt like I had just plucked a huge guitar string. Holy Crap! I spent a few minutes just standing there repeating this until I could get my hips into the right position to isolate that muscle/tendon and hold it over the hip joint without "strumming it" for lack of a better term. Once I would get it into position, I would hold that point and then sort of ease a little more into the stretch. When I stopped it was like the knee was 70-80% better. I have no idea what the heck that muscle/tendon was, but I think it was obviously in some way affecting the IT Band.

Anyway, this is significant, I think. I'm going to spend some time thumbing through my wife's Anatomy books to see if I can determine what body part was stretched there and I'll try to update if possible.

I finished out the 4th mile still alternating sprints and walking. The knee still felt a little tweaked the whole time, but at the end of the run I spent several minutes re-stretching that same mystery muscle and it felt pretty good by the time I jumped in the truck to drive home. It's a little sore now (8-10 hours later), but not nearly as bad as it has been in the past after a flare up.

So, obviously I still can't go out and run any significant distance, but at least I have something else I can try to work on. Also, my bare feet were amazingly in pretty good shape considering how long it's been since I ran and the fact that I did so much sprinting on concrete. No blisters and no painful areas. At least I'm happy about that.
 
BLUF (Bottom Line Up

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front..for the non military types): Time away from running ( I mean NO running) and hip strengthening, I believe were the keys to ITBS recovery for me.

It's been a while since I or anyone has written in this thread, so I figured I would post an update.

After trying unsuccessfully to run while treating ITBS (July-August), I made my last attempt at running in August at the Hottest Half Marathon. It was probably the lowest non-combat related day of my life. PilotRunner was there until I finally drug my sorry ass across the finish line and can probably attest to the fact I was not my usual happy go luck self by that time. Nobody asked Pilot to hang around an extra few hours after he finished running an entire half marathon for some limpy, panzy AF dude to come hobbling in, but he did, and I appreciate it brother. Yep, he's grumpy and he smells like fish and 3rd world brothels, but he's a good dude deep down.

A few times I tested the leg on some 1/4 mile runs after the Hottest Half but then shut it down after that because it never felt right.

I continued foam rolling, stretching, weightlifting, hip exercises, etc. to try and loosen the IT band and build hip strength. Then, I started dabbling in Crossfit...holy shiznit! I didn't realize how weak and out of shape I really was. In about a month my hip strength improved dramatically. I have power, flexibility and just overall renewed skilz. I'm not quite back to being the athlete I was in high school or college, but I'm moving in that direction. I'm pretty sure (no empirical proof) that Crossfit helped me get past the weak hips that contribute to ITBS.

So, fast forward to recent times. I started running again slowly in October. 1/2 mile per day, 2-3 times per week then bumped it up about 1/2 mile more or less per week unless work or weather prevented me from running. Last week I did my first run of 3.17 miles since I developed ITBS. No ITB pain. Today I ran 4.2 miles with no ITB pain just tender sore feet.

I am cautiously optimistic.