I walked back into work this morning — the place is really dead today, I think a lot of students are struggling to get back to campus, and those who are here aren’t enthused about walking across snow-choked streets. Since I’d been absent for a few days myself, I had a bunch of chores to catch up on, herding flies and checking on spiders, so I had to do more walking than usual. I noticed something annoying.
I’ve got this torn meniscus in my right knee that has been going untreated, in the hopes that it would close up on its own. It hasn’t. As I was walking, I noticed that my right knee was getting gradually hotter and hotter, like a mechanical part that was out of lubricant. It was getting so hot that I imagined it bursting into flames as I spiraled down into a catastrophic fiery explosion.
I have done the sensible thing and am sitting down in my office as the heat slowly dies down. I don’t think I have to worry about crashing now, but I was concerned about my right pants leg catching fire.
I don’t have to move until my class at 1:00, and I should have cooled down by then. If you hear about a case of spontaneous combustion in western Minnesota, though, I thought I’d let you know so you can all say you know the guy.
You’ve got snow-choked streets. In California, we’ve got a Sever Weather alert: “Heat Advisory” Only the mid-80s but…it’s March, not July/August.
Is there anyone at the uni now who could look at it and do anything to help?
Would ice help? Not ICE.
Been there, bought the tee shirt. Mine was the left knee. I put off the menisectomy too long and now I’ve put off the knee replacement too long. It pays to be pro active.
PZ, you need to make your health the top priority! Think clearly, the worst case is if you end up hospitalized, classes and spiders would suffer more.
And, on top of that Mary will be so pissed.
OK, well, then, a theme song for the day. The Bobs had something to say about this.
I obviously don’t know how bad your tear is but I have had meniscus tears in both knees, and meniscectomy surgeries helped so much – gave me 20 pain-free-walking years before hurting again. IMO only: of all the surgeries in all the gin joints in the world… it’s the easiest. Just sayin’. Good luck. (Now… knee replacement…. that’s a different animal)
I got turned down for that simple arthroscopic surgery. I was told it was because my heart disease made it too risky. I’ve since learned that the orthopedic surgeon in town is a very conservative Catholic, so I think he just found a good excuse.
Like others here, just adding encouragement.
Arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus is one of the easiest, most successful procedures I’ve had.
In your case, I’d for sure get a second opinion.
Yep – time for a new doctor there – Out of town? In the towns where the children live?
I felt something similar the other day, but both of my knees felt like they were about to burst into flame. It wasn’t a torn meniscus or anything though. I was pouring bronze and holding a 2000F crucible in front of me. I need to get some leather chaps for this stuff.
I had a much more acute case of something in my left knee recently. I chalk it up to being too aggressive with my weightless squat routine. I was doing two sets of 40 a day almost every day and it caught up to me. I had issues standing on the knee and bearing weight until I started walking and it would feel better. It got worse over the course of several weeks. I was wondering if I was entering into osteoarthritis territory. Stubborn me kept doing squats, but less frequently. I started doing short duration seiza. It cleared up after the seiza, but maybe not because of the seiza. Knee feels fine now, but I only do one set of 50 reps of squats every other day or so. And limited seiza which seems prima facie apt to wreck knees.
Maybe I was overtraining or I got a glimpse of my osteoarthritic future. I assume the squats are at least fending off dangerous sarcopenia and stabilizing my knees via stronger muscles. Good in the long term?
I was really concerned when my knee was giving me trouble. It kinda hurt, especially in the morning and late afternoon after sitting, standing (ouch), and walking all day. Came close to looking up an orthopedist. I felt full of regret for the exercise which I intended to act as an ounce of prevention.
Oddly it didn’t hurt to do squats at all, but I could tell later that I was aggravating something. Stubborn like that I guess.