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Hi Ken,

I'm 32 and have a lot of rec basketball mileage on my body over the years (1-2x a week) including some miles from Fastbreak! Recently, my left knee always swells up after I play basketball (Right along the knee cap, northwest quadrant if looking at the knee). The swelling goes down after a few days (I always ice both knees after I play), but while it's swollen, it's difficult for me to fully grab my foot behind me in a front quadriceps stretch. Probably just wear and tear over the years, but curious if you have any advice.

I used to suffer this same type of temporary swelling in my right knee after banging knees a long time ago, but it went away and hasn't recurred much since.

Tony,

thanks for being to first to ask a question.

Sounds like you are experiencing knee pain due to cartilage degeneration, or as you say, wear and tear. You sound like you've logged some basketball minutes throughout your recreational bball career so my initial assumption is that you've got some wear and tear in your meniscus. The meniscus is basically fibrous cartilage that acts as a shock absorber between your femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shin bone). Over the years you can wear that down and cause some micro trauma, or small damage to the cartilage. Whenever you play ball or even do something active like running or jumping, you are irritating that area causing an inflammatory process. This is probably why you are getting pain and swelling in the knee afterwards, but goes away in a few days with ice and rest. When the knee is swollen, bending the knee all the way, like when stretching the quads, will definitely cause an increase in pain.

You're too old to have arthritis and if you don't have pain with things like going up/down stairs or squatting down you can make the assumption that its not a tendonosis either. To prevent the knee pain after playing bball, i would suggest getting on a strengthening program. The stronger the leg muscles are the less pressure you'll have on the cartilage in the knee. You'll need to also do a lot of stretching prior to playing and maintenance work such as resting and icing as needed.

if you have any more questions let me know

ken

Lou,

Patellar tendonitis can present itself in a lot of ways. Some people have pain running (they call it runners knee), some have it with weight bearing activities such as going up stairs and jumping. Tendonitis is a result of overuse to a tendon causing some micro trauma. Tendonitis doesn't typically happen over night, usually someone is already stressing the tendon prior to you actually feeling the pain.

The fact that it doesn't happen with running is a good thing meaning that one less activity cause pain. When you bend down, like squatting or kneeling down, you do put stress on the knee and potentially stressing the patellar tendon leading to pain. First thing you always do with tendonitis is find out what causes pain. If bending down irritates the patellar tendon then you have to limit that movement. Usually that means not putting stress on your knee with activities such as kneeling, lunging down to tie your shoes, or doing improper movements such as squatting with bad form. Rubbing the patellar tendon is both good and bad. The good is that you're probably warming up the tissue and bring blood to the area making it feel better and less irritate. The rubbing can help break down some of the damaged tissue which might be causing some of the discomfort. The bad is that you could be prolonging the problem. Think about a bug bite. If you continue to scratch it, it will probably get worse. It would be okay to rub the area, just don't rub so hard that it hurts.

With my patents, i find the best treatment is a combination of rest, ice, stretching, and strengthening. Resting and avoiding those activities that cause the tendonitis to get worse is the first thing that you have to do. Limiting the amount of times you irritate it gives your body a better chance at healing the area. Stretching is very important. The patellar tendon is attached the the knee cap which is attached to the quadriceps muscle. If you have tight quads, you're basically pulling the knee cap up towards the hip and stomach causing a tug on the patellar tendon, leading to stress in the area. Strengthening is probably the most improvement thing in the long term. A lot of people know that you need to strengthen the muscle around the knee in order to prevent tendonitis from happening, but they always assume that means doing a lot of quadriceps work. One of the most improvement areas to strengthen are the hips, especially the glute muscles. The stronger the hips are, the less pressure in the knee. Exercises to avoid initially are leg extensions and deep squats. Leg lifts are great, along with hamstring curls, hip abduction and adduction machines. Balance training is also great at building more stability in the knee and hip region. Things like squats and lunges are good, but you need to have good form. If you can't do them right, its best to avoid them initially.

i hope that helps.

EJK,

first off, stop letting guys drive by you so you have to grab their jersey to stop them.

you definitely have a thumb sprain and since you did it 24hrs ago there isn't much that you can do now. The thumb and hand are going to be swollen for 1-2 weeks. The thumb is going to get more stiff and probably hurt if you try to move it around too much. You're going to also get some weakness in the thumb making it hard to grip and hold things. I would just keep icing and avoid using it. Throughout the day you can try to massage the "soft mushy" part of the hand around the thumb joint to get some of the swelling out. Just avoid using the thumb for now. Not really any exercises you can do.

You probably won't feel comfortable playing for at least 2 weeks (but if you have playoff game this weekend please consult your PT). Its going to be hard to palm the ball and shoot. If you play too early, you risk having your thumb get hit and making the sprain worse. If its a bad sprain, you could be looking at over a month before you feel 100%. If the pain doesn't significantly get better by 4 weeks, you'll probably have to go see a doctor.

ken

What's up fellas. Just wanted to post a question of my own and see what the opinions are.

With all these new basketball shoes coming out, I wanted to know what players thought were the best ones out now. With the new Kyrie 2, Lebron soldiers, Steph curry"s, etc all coming out, there are more options than ever.

So the question is, which shoes would you recommend players get?

Sounds like you have muscle soreness and fatigue. If you're waking up with pain that means your lower back muscles are tightening up when you're sleeping. Something good to do is spend about 10 minutes stretching your lower back and legs. Some easy stretches would consist of stretching the hamstrings, quads, and glute muscles. This should decrease the amount of lower back pain in the morning. The fact that your lower back hurts at the end of the day means those muscle are probably getting fatigue. To address this you need to increase your core work. Strengthening your abs, glute muscles and lower legs is the way to go. Crunches, planks, leg lifts are good exercises, and squats, leg press, leg extension/curls are really good to. Chiropractic care probably won't address your underlying issue. You could do to one and get treatment, but you'll probably only feel better for a day or 2 and then your pain will come back. The best thing to do is to actually see a PT to help you address these issues. This type of pain is easily addressed, but if you don't, it could be a worse problem in the future.

If you go to perfectfithealth.com and type in the code below you can follow the exercises and stretches which will help. Pick a few to do and see how you feel. If anything hurts just stop and move to another exercise.
code: ZSW6471

Max,

sounds like you have a hip abductor strain or in other words a groin strain. There are 3 abductor muscles that run from the pelvis thru the inner thigh and down to the inside of the knee. You'll need to rest the leg and avoid strenuous exercise and excessive movements. Icing the painful area and taking some over the counter medication should help. If the pain gets worse just reach out to me I can help to reassess issue.