What is going on with my knee?

April 23, 2020 12:16 PM

Sudden-onset inner knee pain caused by ???????

For the past 36 hours or so, I've been having sudden and mysterious pain on the inside of one knee. The pain is fully on the inside of my leg at knee height, not directly around the kneecap. It feels achy pretty much all the time, with sharper pain if I move to sit cross legged, lie down in bed with my knees bent, or walk up stairs. It seems to have nothing to do with bearing weight; when walking up stairs, for example, the pain is worst when I lift and bend that leg to move upward, with all of my weight on the opposite leg. It also feels completely stable. (I just experimentally did some one-legged squats and it felt totally normal.) It is not swollen or hot, but is a tiny bit sensitive to the touch.  

I'm in my 30s and reasonably fit. I run 2-4 miles a few times a week, which is not new. My weight hasn't changed. The only change to my exercise habits lately is that I've been doing yoga every day since we started sheltering in place ~6 weeks ago, but we're talking like 20-30 minute not-very-difficult videos, nothing weird. I haven't had any pain doing that or running, and I definitely haven't experienced anything that could be classified as an injury, so I'm kind of stumped as to what might've caused this. 

If it matters, it's my dominant knee, both in terms of handedness/footedness (I play soccer in my non-isolation life) and the fact that I had ACL surgery on the OTHER knee about 4 years ago. It has never given me trouble in the past. 

There's a great physical therapist at my regular doctor's office, but obviously that's not happening right now. I just would love to have some clue as to what caused this, so I can never do that thing again, as well as how much I should be resting vs pushing through with my normal activities. Help?

posted by catoclock to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

The suddenness of onset doesn't fit, but I get knee pain on the inside of my knees due to overpronation. After not wearing shoes (that is, not getting arch support) for a while the knees will start to be quite sore and painful. Are you wearing shoes a lot less than normal (if you're staying inside a lot less than normal, this might be happening)?

I prevent this problem by having house shoes (first pair were bought via amazon, marketed as "German house shoes"; essentially slippers except with a rigid insole including arch support; later when I lived in Denmark for a few years I bought some hjemmesko there which were slightly more like comfortable clogs). I wear these shoes all day indoors.

In my non-isolation life I travel for work, sometimes for 3 or 4 weeks at a time; if I don't bring a pair of house shoes along I'll be sore by the end of it. It takes a week or longer of wearing the house shoes again to get back to normal, so if this is your problem it is an easy but not quick fix.
posted by nat at 12:23 PM on April 23, 2020

I had that problem that lasted a a month. Finally I got an MRI and it turned out I had "Bakers Cyst." That is actually a swelling of the burser in the knee. Easily treatable. No surgery required unless it has to be drained but it's not a big deal. I got a cortisone shot. I was very careful to not irritate it by walking up or downstairs if I could avoid it. And I used ice. Eventually it went away and no longer troubles me. That was more than 2 years ago. Go to an orthopedist, preferably one who specializes in knees.
posted by philv599 at 1:35 PM on April 23, 2020

The description sounds eerily similar to a possible torn meniscus. This can be serious or minor. I suspect I tore my meniscus from a combination of running and doing pidgeon pose in yoga way too heartily. For a while it got very sore on the inside of my knee, and I suddenly could not sit cross legged. I eased off running for a bit and dropped pidgeon pose for nearly a year and the pain subsided.

I may be wrong, but regardless, easing off the exercise and avoiding any kind of pose that stretches that particular part of your leg for several weeks would be your best bet. Good luck.
posted by Amy93 at 2:24 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

I had basically the same set of symptoms. I think I did it to myself by rotating with my foot planted on the floor. My hip joint was too tight to rotate as a result of not warming up properly, so all the rotation went into the knee joint, which is not meant to rotate. I didn't notice anything serious at the time, just some stiffness, but my knee was sore later that day and stayed sore despite rest.

When the pain didn't go away after 3 months, I saw a doctor who prescribed a strong course of NSAIDs. When that didn't work, he diagnosed frayed cartilage and said that I had inflamed it with a wrong movement but it was also the cumulative result of wear. He gave me a cortisone shot that did the trick, but two years later, the pain still comes back if I use my knee wrong.

I need to concentrate on maintaining my kneecap over my foot when loading the joint, reducing muscle tension around the knee, and avoiding rotation, compression, or lateral pressure like when I cross my legs. Yoga is a complete nonstarter for me. Hopefully you've got less general wear and tear, so by treating the inflammation, you can get back to playing soccer one day. Rest it and go see a specialist.
posted by fuzz at 3:32 PM on April 23, 2020

I had a pain like that (sudden onset, back of the knee) that I did physical therapy for months for with little effect. An MRI of the knee found nothing.

After changing physical therapists the new PT found that with certain ways she manipulated my leg I would get tingling in my foot: a sign that this was actually a sciatic nerve issue. PT focused on my back (as well as changing how and where I sat, and sleeping with a pillow under my legs) has helped. At one point they did an X-ray showing that I had a herniated disk.
posted by janewman at 10:23 PM on April 23, 2020

Once in a great while (less than once a year) I wake up with a sudden onset of pain in my knee, like someone hit my knee with a sledge hammer while I was sleeping. It was diagnosed as pseudogout. It usually feels better, back to 100%, in three or four days. The last time it happened I was able to rest the knee and the next day it was okay.
posted by Dolley at 6:00 PM on April 24, 2020