Nov 17, 2009
Plenty of RICE, nerve damage and feeling old
It’s almost a week since I (medical jargon alert!) shitted up my knee, and there’s no noticeable improvement. It isn’t painful (which to be fair is an improvement compared to the morning after) but, more irritatingly, it feels uncomfortable and constantly weak. It’s hard to describe. Sometimes it just feels like I can’t put my full — considerable — weight on it. Sometimes it feels like the lower part of my leg is coming loose when I walk. At the moment it feels like the joint has been anaesthetised. And to top it all off my other knee is starting to hurt because of the extra — considerable — weight it has to bear. All in all I’m pretty pissed off.
The advice I was given was to get plenty of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). Perhaps unwisely I’ve been online a few times to try and get a better understanding of what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I should apparently only follow the RICE theory for a couple of days after the injury, and I should only apply ice for twenty minutes at a time (with a rest in between ‘icings’—although the suggested periods of rest differ from website to website, from twenty minutes to four hours). Wednesday night, immediately after feeling the pop in my knee, I should have done the RICE thing immediately. Instead, I walked nearly 3 miles to get home (stupid male pride prevented me from asking for a lift home), and, thinking I’d walked it off, slumped on the sofa watching Flight Of The Conchords on BBC4.
Thursday night I should have done the RICE thing again. Instead I went to the pub for my mate’s birthday (sausage, egg and chips, a few shandies and a couple of hands of poker — it was worth it). I also forgot about my fucked knee whilst running across the pub car park in the rain. All told I’ve done nothing much to help the situation, and when I have tried to help the situation I’ve got it completely wrong. Friday night I sat with ice on my knee for two hours solid. TWO HOURS. That’s a bit more than the recommended twenty minutes. (Apparently this can lead to nerve damage. That may explain the aforementioned anaesthetised sensation.)
Not my knee
Despite considering myself to be fairly unfit and not especially active, being unable to do the little bits of exercise I previously took for granted is getting me down. Wednesday night 5-a-side football was fast becoming the highlight of my week and I was really starting to enjoy running (ME! ENJOYING RUNNING!). At lunchtime I went for a short walk to the shops just to get out of the office, and found it really tough. I’m wishing I hadn’t bothered now, as my knee is throbbing. It’s not painful but it’s uncomfortable. I feel so pathetic. I feel old.
On the plus side, there isn’t much swelling around my knee. I read that swelling is a tell-tale sign of damage. Plenty of rest is the order of the day (or the order of the rest of the year, to be specific). It’s demoralising that I’m still hobbling around though, and I’m annoyed I can’t walk a couple of hundred yards without feeling like my leg is going to drop off. This does however give me an excuse to be a lazy fucker for the foreseeable future. Every cloud…