Just walked 10km after 1 year of chronic knee pain

My journey started 1 year ago, though I only found out about TMS very recently.

I had just picked up running as a new hobby. It was a sort of replacement for weightlifting which I was unable to do because of a right shoulder injury (I won't get into that now...). After finishing a 4km run (which was a lot for me as an amateur), I was feeling very confident and wanted to end it off with an all out sprint to see how fast I could run. I didn't feel anything wrong. Until the next day.

When I woke up I had a barely noticeable tingle in my right knee. I ignored it, of course. That same day I went for a 10km stroll on light terrain with a friend. Usually that wouldn't be too hard on me, since I had experience hiking. However, that tingle in my knee from last day's run, slowly started feeling worse over the course of the walk. By the end of the walk the pain was around a 3/10 and my knee felt "unstable". Why didn't I end the walk earlier? Because I'm an idiot. But also because I sort of felt pressured to finish it, since I came up with the idea...

Part of me expected the pain to go away after a nights rest, but another part of me related the experience with my shoulder injury. That awful dull pain felt so familiar. Subconsciously I went into panic mode. I needed some sort of physical activity to feel happy. Otherwise I would spiral into depression. The thought of losing my ability to run and hike terrified me. And these thoughts marked the start of my chronic pain.

Next day, the pain wasn't so bad. Mostly it was a feeling of joint instability. I rested. After deciding that 1 rest day was plenty, I went on a jog. Couldn't make it past half a mile. Pain jolted through my knee and I felt like something would tear something if I kept going. 7/10 on the "pain scale". I went back home and I finally got the bright idea to rest properly and avoid running for a couple of weeks.

I couldn't completely stop moving though. At the very least I had to walk my dog and go to the store, etc. But after the final jog my pain started appearing even during walking. I couldn't cut my dog's walks short as he is a very active dog, so I pushed through the pain. Every single step now caused me pain. That, of course, progressed into a constant state of pain even when lying down.

I kept reducing my daily steps thinking it would ease my pain. Eventually someone else was walking my dog. I went from doing an average of 15k steps a day to barely 3000. No matter what I did the pain refused to go away.

I spent the next 11 months fixating on my pain. I tried everything to get rid of it. Foot mobilisation, gait correction, strengthening weak muscles, foam rolling, stretching, etc. At most the exercises did nothing, but some of them even made things worse. Needless to say my life revolved around my knee pain. Whatever free time I had, I would spend it on researching various knee conditions and attempting to diagnose myself. The process of getting an MRI felt too slow / expensive and the last time I had a joint MRI, it did nothing to help my issue, since I wasn't willing to undergo surgery anyway. And so I learned way too much about knee anatomy and that only reinforced my fears that I wouldn't be able to fix my pain without surgery since rehab didn't help.

Everything changed after I moved to a different larger city. At that same time I started wearing tighter jeans more often. And for some reason I could walk a bit further before getting unbearable pain. I attributed it to the compression effect of the jeans. I thought they were acting as a sort of knee brace. My longer commute now forced me to walk more and very rapidly I was able to increase my daily steps back to around 10k. There was still pain, but it was milder. Every so often I would go back to my small town. I would walk around without jeans (in shorts) and the pain would be just as awful as ever. Even for tiny distances.

The sheer amount of pain reduction just by wearing jeans was perplexing to me. I tried searching online and apparently they actually make knee pain worse in most people. I gaslighted myself into believing that I was an exception. That lasted until I started thinking back and noticing some weird things about my pain. My knee pain didn't scale proportionally to the amount of steps I did. I was even at a birthday party where I almost forgot about my knee pain until after the party.

After a lot of thinking I discovered that there was a bigger correlation between my mood and my pain than how much I walked. I had trouble accepting this, so I seeked external validation. I found a short video explaining what TMS is, then I watched a podcast episode with Alan Gordon on TMS.

I was very sceptical, but felt like I had nothing to lose at this point, so I gave the methodology a try. What really connected with me was that you shouldn't try to just ignore the pain, rather you should convince your brain that the painful signals you are receiving are completely normal sensations. This approach of accepting the sensations rather than rejecting them was a game changer for me. My pain was slowly transforming and "barriers" that prevented me from doing normal things started being lifted. Every activity I did that no longer caused me pain, gave me hope that this was working. Just a week later I could run up and down stairs with almost no pain. I couldn't and still can barely believe it.

After restoring some normal activity, today I decided it was time to try doing something I loved - walking long distances. So I set out for a 10km walk to a very nostalgic place for me. At some points I was anxious that I could be resetting all of my progress and then some by making a foolish impulsive decision, and that of course resulted in some discomfort in my knee. But I pushed through, taking a break where necessary to calm my nerves and finished my walk. And when I came home there was no difference in pain compared to before the walk. Just some nice muscle fatigue from walking.

My main point in writing all of this is: I didn't follow any specific protocols on TMS, I didn't read any books, courses, etc. All it took was some retrospection to realise that my pain could likely be psychosomatic, and an hour long video from an awesome fellow on YouTube. So don't overcomplicate things. If you have sufficient reason to believe that the main cause of your pain is TMS, then you should act. If you are on here, you likely have all the information you need for this "battle". Now put it into action. I believe in you!

 

Thank you @Ankorto!

I am so happy you had the light bulb moment!

I have been battling with painful feet for some time. I have managed to get rid of back pain. Suddenly a couple of days ago I developed knee pain. I'm a crossfitter, runner. But the funny thing is its painful in walking not running! Also developed left shoulder and hip pain around the same time. I know this is all tms, i recently received some sad news and the body has erupted!

I typed in knee pain into search bar and i see your message first. Positive stories like yours keeps us going!

 

It was exactly the same for me in terms of walking hurting more than running! It is a great TMS sign, and my pain was fully TMS which has recovered too. You got this

 

Thank you for the kind comments. It does seem like some people are more prone to health anxiety related pain.

I have a friend who also had some knee pain after a run and his approach was as simple as resting for two weeks. After that it was gone. He didn't get obsessed with reading about knee anatomy like I did. Didn't do any rehab. Maybe it's because some of us always think of the worst case scenario. I think the initial pain in TMS cases like mine is not purely psychosomatic. There is probably some tiny structural damage that heals in a week or so. Then we preserve the pain and amplify it for years.

@LJD75 I wish you luck with your feet pain. Never stop moving.

 

I completely agree and am the same. I am prone to freaking out and thinking the worst case with any health issue I have (not just an injury) - I think it is either genetic or I've learnt it by watching my father (he is the exact same).