How much knee pain do you run through?

[PicotFanStitch]

I finished couch to 5k three weeks ago and have been running for 30 mins every other day since then. But for the last ten days or so, my knees have been hurting, at first only during runs and then stiffening up afterwards and now most of the time and they're also clicking audibly when I go up or down stairs. I aborted my run half-way through yesterday, and haven't gone today, but I really don't want to stop having got this far. Any ideas? One friend said 'just run through the pain' but that's seeming like less of a good idea...

I don't know..... sorry. Maybe try running on grass instead? I run on grass and in woods, but if I ever change and go on the pavement, I get horrendous shin pain, so much that last time I aborted the run, hobbled home and iced my legs.

How are your trainers? What about cod liver oil and strapping your knees?

Having just started getting back to running after horrid knee injury I would say stop and rest for a few days and allow the inflamation to reduce. My knee surgeon said that many people come to running and discover they love it but build up too quickly and their legs don't have enough strength hence pain. Its repetative pounding on hard surfaces that gets you. Relax for a bit then ease back in slowly with power walking but also look at some strength excersises for your glutes/back and knees.
I am doing lots of lunges and squats to try and get the strength back. Also using a wobble board to try to strengthen all the ting muscles in the knees that give the core strength.
Also as Florence says, go for softer surfaces, someone told me yesterday that two miles off road is like running 4 miles on road and it isn't anywhere near as much impact. How true this is I don't know.

No, don't run through pain. You will only make the injury worse. If you can, see a physiotherapist. If not, rest until they get better. I second the idea of trying exercise on different surfaces. Lots of stretching, and work to build up your thigh muscles, is also likely to be helpful.

There aren't really softer surfaces round here - urban and very hilly. I noticed it was worse going downhill and started finding routes that avoided steep slopes, but the only grass is in the park and I'd be running in very small circles near a lot of dogs (which scare me) and their poo. Would a treadmill be any better? I walk 4 miles day anyway, up and down aforementioned hills, so I fear I won't gain any strength from more of that. I do have very flat feet, but bought proper running shoes with the right support from a proper running-shoe shop. Thanks for the advice!

I often pop onto knee pain threads with an exercise which has got me through a week's ski-ing with zero knee pain in the past, at a time when they were becoming distinctly dodgy!

Feel free to ignore, obv:
Balance the balls of your feet on the edge of a step/the bottom stair, heels hanging down. Keeping legs straight, slowly raise onto tiptoes and slowly back down again, to the maximum stretch at the bottom. Build up to 15 raises/drops.
Repeat for left and right leg individually, again build up to 15 raises/drops.
Make sure you don't bend the knees!

If you have access to a treadmill, do you also have access to other exercise machines such as bikes and cross-trainers? They will let you keep on getting fitter while your knees recover.
What a physio told me when I first started running (and got knee problems - which of course might have been quite different to yours) was that muscles build up more slowly than stamina does. So you try to do too much because you feel fit enough, when in fact the muscles need more time to get strong and protect your joints.. Hence backing off running for a while in favour of other forms of exercise.

There's a gym at work, which I've never used because sweaty blokes and air conditioning and a general mist of testosterone put me off, but they have all sorts of special offers at the moment so maybe it's time to try. You're right, it's the idea of losing fitness that bothers me, after all this effort building it up.

Brave the gym! And don't be intimidated by all the sweaty blokes ? they are much more worried about what they look like than about what anybody else is doing. It may also have machines with fixed weights, which are very useful the building up leg muscles. Good luck!

Sorry to worry you but clicking when going up and down stairs was the first symptom I had when I had damaged the cartilidge in my knee. Please see your dr.