Yeah, everyone is surprised that bicycling triggers my knee. But
the first time it flared up was after bicycling
both times I tried physical therapy, it ended when the therapist coaxed me onto a stationary bicycle. And I tried not to overdo it, but even so, I ended up barely able to walk the next day. And then it took a week to recover.
Trekking poles do help when I have to navigate hilly or bumpy ground. Skiing is dicey, but if I don’t push it I can do it. Prophylactic NSAIDs are extremely helpful, and allow me to do a lot I otherwise couldn’t. One dose before an activity can prevent needing NSAIDs for a week after the activity.
I don’t either. These days it’s generally only triggered if I hike distances with significant elevation change, and then I manage it with the trekking poles. I imagine if I did many dozens of flights of stairs a day it could trigger it, but so far so good. I’m sure if I started running regularly it would crop up right away, but I won’t do that.
oh, and finally getting a good physical therapist in the middle of covid after my not as good one got covid scared and went to virtual only, so i used that as an excuse to switch to his associate who filled in for him once who i loved is what got me into a place where i’m not in constant pain every day.
i’ve had issues with my knee since i was 12 though which spread to my hip. it wasn’t recent from just walking down stairs. i might give it a little time before bothering to go the pt route, but i found pt to be invaluable
although i think my pt was surprised i have no issues with stairs, so i wonder if the diagnosis is even right.
I chalk all that up to ‘I don’t heal anywhere near as quickly because of age’. Wasn’t that long ago I think that any sort of physical injury/pain healed itself immediately or within days. Now if I do something stupid, stuff can take months to heal properly. And until then, screwing around will set it off again. Muscle/joint stuff in particular. Just gotta take it real easy on everything these days.
When I started running again in my 30’s after stopping in my early 20’s I started getting knee pain that didn’t worsen in intensity, but would last 24/7. Doctor told me the same thing (misalignment). After a bit of PT it stopped, but I never resumed running due to prohibition of running on hills. Strangely, I can do stair climbing to the tune of 500m a day and no knee pain.
This may not help you, but if the bicycle seat is too low (meaning your knee bends too far), then that is problematic for many people. On a real bicycle, I adjust my seat very high so my toes barely touch the ground and my legs are fully extended. Less pressure on my kneecap.
Do you get knee pain from an elliptical?
I’ve never tried an elliptical machine. I know it’s different, and might be okay. But i also know it might not be, and i might end up crippled for a couple of days, and in pain for a few more.
The stationary bike was adjusted by the physical therapist. You’d think he knows how to do that.
Ellipticals are good but I prefer arc trainers. It’s a very similar motion to an elliptical, but I think it’s supposed to be even easier on your joints.
when you start having old people eyes where you have issues with both far away and close up, i didn’t realize until recently that it’s more complicated than that. it seems i need a different prescription for varying depths and just one prescription for reading and another for distance just aint gonna cut it. i’m okay with being blurry in one eye with glasses and the other seeing and the reverse without for most things, but with piano playing i’d like 20/20 vision in both. these glasses are not ideal and i’m finding that having a progressive feature where you have to look down at the bottom of the glasses to read is beyond useless. i never look down the bottom to read. i just take them off and see out of my left eye only. my right eye is okay for distance, but not perfect and the reverse is true for my left eye. the combination of the two is less than stellar eyes for everything.
going to an ophthalmologist today to ask him if i can get glasses specifically to be able to see piano music with both eyes. it was made worse when i had to buy a stand for the piano to make the music lower which makes it closer to my face, but i’m seeing it wasn’t perfect even on the original stand.
do people actually like the progressive feature? it seems useless to me and expensive.
like, i need glasses SPECIFIC to 20 inches or so away from my face for the piano. is that a thing?
No idea. I need glasses for distance. I also need glasses to read the computer screen and my distance prescription doesn’t always work for that. I don’t need glasses for close up, but if I’m wearing corrective lenses for distance then I can’t read. In general I wear contacts and then use cheap reading glasses for the computer and/or reading. I tried bifocals but hated them.
for reading the computer screen, i think i need glasses for distance in my left eye, but not right. neither is perfect with the glasses. right is perfect without. i can still read it with the glasses, but it’s just not perfect.
the eye dilation is SO ANNOYING! i’m waiting for it to wear off right now. never went to an ophthalmologist before, so i never had that done before.
he actually had a music note thing to read from. my issue is apparently extremely common for people to go to him for. i had no idea! i thought i was a special snowflake wanting to see music notes more clearly to play piano. people specifically see him for correcting their vision specific to the piano stand distance though!
the fix for this is not possible with glasses. it would be possible if my eyes were similar, but somehow because they aren’t i can’t get perfect vision for any specific distance, only just good enough vision for the eyes to be in balance of each other. correcting my right eye perfectly with glasses for the piano distance and keeping the left alone would apparently put them out of balance of each other, so it’s not possible.
so, i can see the music pretty well with my right eye without glasses and my left eye with glasses, but without the glasses i’m blind in my left eye. the solution for this is to take off the glasses and get a contact lense for my left eye only. the contact lense would be very specific to this distance exactly. i need a stronger prescription for a further distance. So if I want to keep the one contact in and see far away, i now can’t, so i’m getting a 2nd pair of glasses that adds a little correction to the left eye for distance now (but not the entire thing) so that I can keep the contact in, and my current prescription in the right eye for distance. then my regular glasses for distance without the contacts. Not getting reading glasses at all as I can see okay out of my left eye for reading without any glasses so far. An alternate solution as to not have to wear glasses at all for distance and not need to have 2 sets of glasses for distance, one with a contact and one without, would be Lasik, but no way i’m cutting into my eye just to make a hobby easier. the only way i’d get eye surgery is if i have something truly wrong with it, like cataracts or glaucoma or god forbid macular degeneration like my father has. i got checked for all those things and am good for now.
What…how? The optometrist dilates too, except the place I go to can do a retinal image instead. It costs extra but I hate having my eyes dilated so I couldn’t pay it fast enough.
i guess i was asked if i wanted my eyes dilatated at the optometrist sometimes, but not always. i said no the few times they asked, but most times they didn’t ask. maybe if i asked them to do it they would.
i didn’t know there was an alternative to this of getting a retinal image. i’d way rather that for an extra charge. dilation is torture.