truemg

Thank you, Gabrielle. Lots of good questions. First, a surgeon story….

I visited my surgeon earlier this year when I was having a lot of knee pain. After looking at my x-rays he said, “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you have no space between your patella and the bone beneath so the pain is from bone rubbing on bone. The good news is we can replace just the patella, so a full knee doesn’t have to be done. Would you like a shot of cortisone for the pain now?” That said, I think surgeons only find you engaging if they get to play inside you. Once you are healed up, they lose interest. BTW — I REALLY love my surgeon and he did a fantastic job, but that’s just kind of how they think, you know?

As for the knee pain, I declined the cortisone shot, made some changes to my diet to reduce inflammation and modified some mechanics in my everyday movements to reduce pressure on the patella. A few months later, I started Bikram. At this point I experience virtually no knee pain. I really do not want to have to undergo another surgery. And I really like the positive changes I am seeing throughout my body as a result of the yoga. Definitely the best therapy for arthritis I’ve found yet!! 🙂

How is my technique? I’m pretty new at this but I do listen carefully and try to follow instructions. I’m keeping my weight back on the heel, torso as upright as possible and not hunched over. If I can go in slowly, nail the balance and not move a muscle everything is cool. It seems like it’s those little adjustments one makes in the balancing that causes the clicking. It definitely can get worse when the leg crosses over, but of course that’s a more challenging balance point. Even without crossing the leg, I can still have some minor problems — again, I feel like it’s in those small adjustments needed to balance — but I’m trying to address that by focusing on keeping EVERYthing tight around the joint. It seems to help if I tuck in my butt a bit and really tighten the abs. It should be noted that I have no problem at all with the balancing series, so it’s clearly something that changes in the mechanics with lowering down into that bent knee/sitting position. Hmmmm…..

I try to keep in mind that even three year post-surgery I have not necessarily been doing anything to prepare me for THIS particular posture so perhaps it’s just a matter of rehabilitating and strengthening some of those little structures around the joint that just haven’t been addressed in this way. I also try to remember that when it comes to balance, I don’t get any neural feedback from within the replacement joint as one does with natural bone, so that adds to any balance challenge.

So, my plan for now is to scale back and try to master the posture (and build strength) one piece at a time. Get the arms in place, enter the crouch but not too deeply, make sure I’m back on the heels, slooooowwwwllly lift my leg and work hard at holding that as tight and still as I can. I’m hoping I can build up some strength around the joint and maybe — maybe! — someday be able to cross over.

Sorry for the long post! I really do appreciate the opportunity to discuss this and would welcome any suggestions you might have!

Cheers,
Heather