Is there a physio in the house? Question about possible patellar tendonitis

[foxtiger]

A bit of background: I had a knee injury a couple of years ago and had a few physio sessions - I never saw the same person twice, but they all acted on the assumption that it was an MCL sprain, which fits with where the pain was (inner side of knee). I had exercises to do and it gradually improved, to the extent that I have been running again since the beginning of last year, and was up to 10K earlier this year. My knee still hurt a bit occasionally but it there didn't seem to be any correlation with running, if anything it is more likely to hurt a bit when I first get up or after sitting down for a long time.

Now I think I might have a completely different injury in the same knee. It is more at the front and towards the outer side, below my knee-cap, and it is definitely related to running. If I run 5K I don't notice anything at the time but it hurts later in the day, after resting. If I run much more than 5K it starts to hurt during the run. I've taken to only running once a week at most, but so far the problem hasn't completely gone away. I've done a bit of research and I think it might be patellar tendonitis.

I can think of two things that might have affected it - one is that I had new trainers about 2 months ago, but this injury only appeared about 1 month ago, so I'm not convinced there's a connection. The other is that I've recently started walking a lot more - a 10km round trip 4 or 5 times a week - as I have gone back to my usual workplace and I'd rather not take the bus right now. But it never hurts during walking, unless I ran the day before. It feels like running on top of all that walking might be the breaking point!

Under normal circumstances I would probably self refer to the physio again, but because of Covid I don't particularly want to go to the hospital for something that isn't life-threatening and isn't even all that annoying as long as I don't run. But I would like to do everything I can to get rid of the problem by myself. I've read about a few exercises but wondered if anybody with experience of either having this problem themselves or working as a physio could say which ones are the most useful, or anything else I should be doing. Also is there likely to be any connection with the previous MCL problem e.g. overcompensating in some way and straining a different muscle/tendon?

I've had PT but am not a physio. What you're describing is too technical for me. I know nothing about MCL.

My PT was caused by cycling without rest; blew up when I cycled 1000 miles in 3 weeks. I can do a lot of cycling nowadays but I assume I will always have a weakness. I get tendonitis everywhere.
Keeping my knees warm makes a huge difference, but otherwise rest was the only treatment.... maybe massage helps a little, break down scar tissue.

Thanks! Massage is an interesting idea - it was recommended for the other injury but I hadn't thought of it this time!

MCL is the tendon on the inner side of your knee. I suspect the two things are unrelated but I'm not absolutely certain!

Self refer to physio rather than taking advice off someone who may or may not be qualified to give it! I had a really useful video consultations with one and one normal appointment.