When Should you See A Doctor About Knee Pain?
When Is Knee Pain from Running Serious?
The stages of knee pain are
Stage 0 - Seek medical attention
Stage 1 - New pain / lots of pain
Watch the video about how serious is your knee pain
Not all knee pain is created equal and to treat the pain you first need to know what stage of knee pain you're at.
Find out what stage of knee pain you're at to know how to treat it, read on.
When Should I See A Doctor For My Knee?
Stage 0 - Seek Medical Attention
Stage 0 is the beginning... in this stage you have so much pain that you can't put weight on your leg. You can't put weight through your leg to be able to do your normal daily activities like getting out of bed, bathing, getting dressed, walking around the house and other things. Your pain at this stage is the worst you've ever experienced, you'd rate it a 10/10 on the pain scale and nothing eases the pain: it hurts the same standing, sitting, laying, moving, resting, etc. If you're at this stage seek medical attention.
Stage 0 - seek medical attention looks like:
can't put weight on your leg
pain is unrelenting
pain is 10/10
pain is the worst you've ever experienced
Can I Fix My Knee Pain At Home?
Stage 1 - new Pain/Lots of Pain
Stage 1 is a step above stage 0. In this stage you have a lot of pain, but the distinct difference between this stage and stage 0 is the pain is not unrelenting and you can put weight on your leg.
In this stage the pain is mostly > 5/10 on the pain scale and it changes based on what you're doing and you can find things that make it feel a little better. You're not even thinking about going for a run though... you're resting because running sucks right now.
Stage 1 - New pain /lots of pain
This looks like:
new minor injury from an accident
new pain that happened randomly
flared up old injury
ongoing pain that's still >5/10
can still do normal things
Why Is My Knee Pain with Running so Random?
Stage 2 - Unpredictable Pain
In this stage your pain is all over the place. It's not as high as the pain levels as often as in stage 1 but the pain is so unpredictable. Some days you have little to no pain, other days are really bad and you don't know why. You're running... Kinda. Some days you run and it's fine, other days you run and it Sucks. It's all over the place.
Stage 2 - Unpredictable pain
This looks like:
pain is not ongoing
there are times when it's better
pain is unpredictable
Some days lots of pain
Some days little to no pain
Is it OK To Run with Knee Pain?
Stage 3 - Stable Pain
Stage 3 is a real turning point for your pain. Although your pain isn't completely gone it's predictable. You know exactly what will flare up your pain. Overall the pain levels are lower because you're avoiding the things that bug it. You are sure how to fully get rid of the pain when it comes on.
Phew... you're running. You know which pace and distance works for you and you do that.
Stage 3 - Stable
This looks like
Pain is low
Pain is predictable
You know exactly what flares it up
You know what calms down a flare up
When Can I Run Again After Injury?
Stage 4 - No pain
This is the best stage! your knee doesn't hurt... you can run without worrying if your knee will flare up. You know exactly what to do to keep your knee feeling good and you're actively doing those things so you can keep running without knee pain.
Stage 4 - No pain
This looks like
no pain w/ anything
may or may not be back to your regular workout routine
There you have the 5 stages of running with (or without) knee pain.
The first step to running without knee pain is figuring out which stage you're at.
What stage are you at? Comment below and I'll tell you the next step.
When you're a runner and suffering from knee pain it's important to get rid of it so you can run again. But before you work on getting rid of it you need to know what stage of pain you're at so you can fix it. To find out what stage of pain you're at so you can make your way to run without knee pain this post will tell you that.
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