Thanks so much for that. It seems to fit in with what the good physio I saw before I went away travelling said (who I have not been able to see since) in that my legs and feet pronate and also that I had very tight quads, hamstrings, and hip flexors. I kept up the stretches she gave me for a while, but I was always seeing other physios when I was away with different exercises and as it felt like a different injury as well I didn’t start them up again till I got home.

That means that problems here could still be the case, but for many weeks now I have been stretching every day, with 3 sets of 30 seconds for each one, and have recently upped them to more than once a day, and I am not seeing any improvement. (I only do 3 sets of 15 seconds on the quads as I find it requires a lot of effort to get and hold the required stretch).

Also, for the whole of the last year I have had insoles in my shoes and also been very focussed on walking evenly through the middle of my feet without rolling in. I will definitely get this checked but I believe that I have done this successfully as I still spend the majority of any time I spend walking around thinking about my knee and it is not something I ever have to correct when I think consciously about how I am walking. I know I am also supposed to walk straighter by using my stomach muscles more when I walk and which stretches my hip flexors but I still have to regularly correct this when I become aware of how I am walking naturally. I have never had any advice in changing my running style, which I have always believed to be quite awkward, although never experienced any pain with beforehand.

To answer the other questions, no I haven’t ever been assessed on a treadmill and no one has checked my back and nerves beyond the initial assessment that I needed to straighten my back more and tuck my stomach in so that the trunk was aligned. I have not had problems with any pain whatsoever in my back since I had the injury however.

The vast majority of the time I feel pain in my knee comes when I am sitting down so is this still consistent with overloading of the MCL? Could overactive muscles in that region cause the associated pain in other areas of my knee, and if so is that damage likely to permanently weaken different areas of the knee?

Just to confirm again where I am at right now, I get general aching across the whole knee region when sitting down, which can sometimes come on very quickly or sometimes take up to a maximum of an hour depending on the comfort of the seat, the time of day and whether I have been sitting down a lot earlier in the day (i.e. when at work, regular walks around to stretch my legs delay the aching by less and less when I return to sitting down as the day goes on). I also get variable twinges in the MCL which occur in certain specific situations like crouching down to sit on my heels or when I carried out the standing hip flexor stretch incorrectly and put strain on that ligament, but mostly unpredictably, like just from walking or sitting or other things I do countless times without feeling a twinge. Finally I get pain in different regions of the knee, such as particular points of (what seems to be) Wikipedia reference-linkmeniscus near the MCL and further down towards the tibia in the middle, around/underneath the patella, and in a particular region of what I think is the hamstring (behind the knee near the MCL where the ‘tendon’ can be easily felt by touch). Pain in these areas is mostly relatively new but it varies in terms of whether the pain is achy or sharp and appears to fade and return completely independent of pain in other regions or any activity that I may have done before hand.

Just as a final aside, if anyone in any country has the time and thinks it could be helpful I’d be more than happy to call to speak on the telephone. And if anyone has any advice for finding a physio in Manchester/London who might be able to help me ‘rebalance my musculature’ please let me know. I have seen so many bad ones now I’m not going to a new one till I know someone who’s recommended them.