Evaluating Knee Pain Relief Techniques: PRP, Myokinesthetics, Dry Needling

Turns out ice and rest aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Initially, they might help, but in many cases like your IT Band, resting actually leads to stiffer, tighter muscles and a runner wound so tight someone else is bound to get injured. I’ve had nearly a 10 year streak of little to no major injuries, so when my knee started to act up I assumed it was yet another little niggle that would go away.

I employed all the things I knew:

• Foam Rolling
• Physical Therapy moves to strengthen those hips
• Chiropractic care to get the hips aligned
• Deep tissue massage to workout any kinks that might be throwing of mechanics

No change. I still couldn’t extend my leg.

Once we reached the discussion of surgery, I was open to it, but listening to the Dr’s advice to try other things first. If we weren’t diving right in to cut me open, then I was diving right in to all the other ideas that might seem, wild, whacky or just not as well known.
{NOTE: These ideas work for any area, I’m just focusing on personal experience with the knee.}

In case you’re looking for others from this series more on Knee Recovery:

• Kinesio Taping for a Meniscus Tear
• Anti-inflammatory living for arthritis
• Physical Therapy for Runner’s Knee
• Physical Therapy for Meniscus Tear
• Understanding Cortisone Shots

Platelet Rich Plasma

I’m staring here because once many of you heard I was getting PRP injections, you started emailing immediately to learn more.

What is it?
A small sample of the your blood is placed in a centrifuge to separate the platelets from the other blood components, then the concentrated PRP is injected. Since platelets help to induce recovery, these injections are designed to increase that concentration for rapid healing.

It’s EXTREMELY important to understand that it can take weeks to decide if this is working for you and how long lasting the effects are seems to vary. I think for some people it’s enough to get the healing started so their body can take over, for others it becomes an ongoing treatment if they find relief.

My experience
I’d read too much honestly and feared this was going to be extremely painful…it wasn’t exactly, just a strange shifting of discomfort. Here I’ll detail how the procedure went, along with how I felt in the following days.

The Shot
The shot is done in to the joint, prior to injecting the platelets a numbing shot is giving which is the only painful part. It’s no worse than getting any other shot. Once the PRP is injected there’s an odd feeling of fullness and for me that traveled immediately to my calf, which was weird but not painful in anyway.

In many cases, they use an ultrasound machine to guide the needle in to a specific spot. We ended up not needing to do that, as she just went for the joint. The process itself was about an hour because we talked in depth before they drew blood. Day 1-2: You aren’t allowed to take any kind of anti-inflammatory, as the goal here is to elicit the inflammatory response for healing. So I followed orders not to exercise and as my entire knee area felt very swollen that was pretty easy…I wasn’t interested in being in pain.

Day 3-5: I started using the stationary bike daily to keep myself active and I had no problems doing my strength training. Walking however was an entirely different matter. After a few steps at a ailing grandmotherly pace a knot would form in the top of my calf and it felt like the back of my knee would burst out. So discomfort is the best word for it, not pain, other than a pain in the butt because I couldn’t even walk through the grocery store.

Day 6-11: Pretty much the same, biking all good, walking not great, but the

Day 12-16: I’ve been able to run a few miles after taping my knee back up and walking is feeling a little better. I’m still moving slow, but I can do a mile now before feeling like ugh the back of my knee is swollen.

Day 17-21: Back to using the kinesio tape and being able to run a few miles, plus walk a little bit faster and tiny bit farther. Again, compared to my normal 4.0mph 30 minute after walks, I’m still feeling like a slow poke. A good 3.2mph for a couple miles is enough to make things feel swollen. I’ve also found I still can’t use my standing desk for long periods.

Result
Thus far no additional ability to straighten my knee and we don’t believe this is going to help make that work. However, it will still provide some long term benefits for the arthritis. I don’t know that I can help many of you decide if it’s beneficial, but I hope from this you can see that it’s not painful in the sharp kind of way, but more like that discomfort after a hard marathon that keeps you from doing much.

This also showed me right away, that I was indeed getting more benefits than I realized from my anti-inflammatory routine! I restarted it on day 14 and started to notice a difference right away, even in my skin which was angry from letting all that inflammation run rampant, immediately began clearing up!

Myokenistetics

If you aren’t sure what that word even is, no worries! I had to have Ashley at H2U Plus say it for me a few times and then we both agreed MYK is a better name. This isn’t something you will find many practitioners for yet, but I’m quite positive it will grow and for those in Denver, you must go chat with her!

But what is it?!Your nerve connects to specific muscles, touching and awakening them can callow that nerve to begin sending signals properly. It’s a process that you almost need to experience to fully understand because the light touch seems too good to be true for those of us used to things like deep tissue work with foam rollers!

Focusing on posture, Ashley looked at where my feet rotated, how my shoulders were aligned and all those posture pieces that we know are so important for good running form. After that, she honed in on the specific nerves that needed to be tapped to create change. The goal is to get to the ROOT cause, rather than the symptom.

Example my rotated hip was fixed though 20 minutes of:

• some light tapping on points throughout the body to either awaken or turn off nerves
• no chiro
• no deep tissue painful sports massage
• no need to undress
• you just lay there!

It’s genuinely a fascinating thing to see how these light movements could make a difference and for those in pain, what a great option! You don’t need the intense dig of Graston, just these light touches to change the way your nerves are communicating.

Tired of the old advice to R.I.C.E. - new ideas for pain relief of your #running injuries Click To Tweet

Dry Needling

I’ve had this done in the past and found great results from Dr Lorenzo getting my glutes to release, giving new meaning to the idea of being a tight ass, clearly I carry some emotions there.

ANYHOW, this time around I went to Panther Physical Therapy and after messing with a lot things, we decided to see if dry needling would allow my calf muscle to release and provide any additional knee extension.

So what the heck is it? Dry needling uses fine filament needles on muscular trigger points to create muscle contractions or to create a muscle release through a process of “resetting”. By honing in on these spots (yup those same tender ones you find foam rolling) you can often ease localized and referred pain, tenderness, sensitivity, and motor dysfunction. Trigger points can develop from injury, disease processes, and repetitive stress as occurs in sports or with postural strain.

Is it just acupuncture? Nope.

Acupuncture is designed to restore the flow of energy in the body through pathways called meridians and is usually totally painless. Big fan! Meanwhile, in Dry needling the  needles are inserted into those tender muscle tissue spots which creates a sensation of cramping or twitching. Depending on the area it might be mildly uncomfortable for just a moment, to a “holy mother of… why are you trying to kill me” again for just a moment. Then if it’s worked, you tend to feel a great release in the muscle.

Electroacupuncture is another part of needling. They’ll attach a slight pulse to the needle, which will make your muscle jump and helps to really wake up a muscle that might be shut down.

Active Release Therapy

I have used ART wayyy in the past and didn’t feel it was effective for me, but I have friends who swear by it! I think that my Chrio does a great job of deep muscle tissue work which seems to work best for mre.

For those who don’t know ART is:

“ART is a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they are often a result of overused muscles.”

Other Options

Here are a few other things I’ve discussed previously that might be interesting for injury relief.

• Cryotherapy
• Electrostimulation
• Magnesium for Muscle Cramps and Recovery
• Ice Bath and Epsom Salts
• Using Kinesio Tape for support
• Anti-inflammatory Eating (HUGE!!)
• CBD Oil (I wish I’d tried this one sooner, game changer!)

Are you open to uncommon ideas for relief?

What’s enough to drive you to a doctor?

Other ways to connect with Amanda

Instagram: RunToTheFinish

Facebook: RunToTheFinish

Sign Up to Receive a Weekly Newsletter with Top Running Tips