Running Pain Free After Knee PRP Injections

My name is Gary and in March this year I had Injections in both knees here at The Stone Clinic. When I came to The Stone Clinic, I was pretty much at my wit's end in terms of physical constraints, I'm a very active person. I love to be active, but I couldn't run half a mile without knee pain afterwards, swelling could last up to two weeks. So really frustrating feeling like I could do so much more. Anyway, I had the injections in March and a program of physical therapy here immediately afterwards. And a lot of the exercises that I was taught during that physical therapy are a big part of my daily exercise routine now. And I believe these two things in common, the injections working their magic and the consistent exercise routine building in these exercises I learned here have got me into a completely different place. Eight months on yesterday I ran six miles pain-free. Next day I'm pain and swelling free is just been a continual positive progression ever since March.

Yeah, so both knees were similar maybe, well my right knee a little worse than my left, but I'd got to basically bone-on-bone on the medial side of both knees. And basically, this meant discomfort. The more I did, the more discomfort I would feel sometimes I could cross the street, try and run across the street to beat the traffic and I'd regret it afterwards. Little things, sometimes the pain could continue depending how much I do. The pain could last for days, so I'd actually resign myself to knee replacements in the summer and at this moment in time, that now looks like something a lot further into the distance.

I would say the progression is not overnight and it's been gradual over eight months. I would say after maybe three to four months, that was when I started to think, Hey, I'm feeling quite a lot different to where I was three or four months ago. And at that point onwards, whatever pain I was causing myself by the activities I was doing, I used it as a sort of a ceiling and I kept pushing that ceiling higher and higher week by week, month by month. And I've basically been able to increase the activities I've been doing and I've been careful not to push so hard that I set myself back and I'm still able to push that, keep pushing that ceiling.

The rehab they actually taught me to walk, this sounds a little crazy, right? But I'd adjusted my gait because of the knee pain so that I wasn't even walking properly and I hadn't realized I was making my own situation worse. And so some of the exercises that I was taken through actually helped me readjust my gait and reset it. So I'm actually putting my heel down when I stride forward, which I had stopped doing without realizing I'd stopped doing it. But the exercises encouraged me to activate muscles which I wasn't activating and return to a more normal gait. It's a big change eight months since March this year.

I'm smiling with you asking the question. So I've always been an outdoor person, a very active person, and I love working out and I love doing it in a community. I love going on group runs, group workout sessions, and I have access to all of that stuff. And I found it so miserable every time I couldn't do it or I could only do part of it or I couldn't do as much as I wanted to. And it's a big part of my sort of self.I think happiness, just being able to recharge. I'm feeling better in myself. I accidentally lost weight I hadn't planned to, but that was just one of those happy knock-on effects because I'm considerably lighter than I was fitter than I was. General lifestyle is improved.

Yeah, mental wellbeing, I mean, work is stressful, life is stressful and exercise is a huge release I should say. And it's a big part of my work-life balance. And so as soon as that gets constrained or threatened, if I feel it's threatened to be taken away, that's not good. And so I'm at the point now where I feel like I can do what I need to do in that space, which is just, it's a huge release. It's good.

I think my learnings this year, I think the combinations of treatment here are a really great start on the right path. But I think it also takes some dedication, consistency, commitment. Personally that's the start that sets what your talk here is powerful, but you've got to keep doing it. So that was really a big learning for me today. And I guess the second one, it's not an injection. It's not like taking an ibuprofen where 20 minutes time you start to feel an immediate benefit. It's going to be a progression over time. And I think if you try and measure it day to day, you might get a little disheartened. But I think when I got to the three to four month mark, what I realized was looking back three to four months, there was a step change. So when you start to look out that little bit further, you start to realize, okay, I've come some way. And that is something, if you can learn to do that to, it can be a really powerful motivator to keep going.