The Knee Demon Returneth

This time of year is terrible for the arthritic, myself included. My left knee regularly likes to make it’s presence known, but no more so when temperatures are frigid outside.

It’s a miserable affair having a limb that doesn’t work as it should and is frustrating when standing and walking can’t be avoided. Today I was cooking in the kitchen for a few hours to prep for my soup kitchen debut tomorrow evening, and my god did I pay for that!

The weekly food shop couldn’t have been put off any longer but I was consumed by the twangy achy flash of pain in my knee that rendered my leg a peg and forced me to hobble up and down the aisles like a zombie hungry for brains.

As readers with 'wear and tear' conditions like mine will know, the official medical stance is to not stop moving, and trying move as normally as possible… *looks directly to camera* easier said than done, Doc.

There are stretching exercises one can do to ease tension (see pillow squeezing technique, above) but doing them properly involves deliberately waking, and actively prodding, the little sadistic demon embedded in the affected area.

You’re basically being asked to hurt yourself in an effort to heal yourself. I guess that’s physio 101 come to think of it.

From discussing my flare up with my partner, we’ve come to the conclusion that the trigger point was the 20 minute session I did on the exercise bike at the beginning of the week. A deliberate low impact activity that’s not supposed to aggravate my wounded knee, but lo! Here we are.

Walking and swimming are the other two go-tos for those with lower limb arthritis, however these are not so simple when one is living through an era of pandemic where the rules of access are as transient as the wind at sea.

That, and living in an incredibly hilly part of Yorkshire where every street walked feels like scaling a mountain or descending a ski slope. Surely this isn’t ideal for recovering an already very stroppy joint?

It is incredibly tempting to sack it all off and just sit in front of the TV until my knee has decided to stop sulking, but then I suffer in every other way apart from knee pain.

Maybe balancing rest and recovery is the key? And maybe also only doing a bit a day so that movement out of the ordinary isn’t such a shock to the arthritic system?

Either way, I’m still packing a camping chair for the foreseeable.