Hay Jack Back again sorry been busy the last few days.

Yes it is possible that one problem in the kinetic chain can improve your symptoms

If your VMO / knee stability is contributing this much, I would highly suggest really focusing on retraining your LHS knee support systems.

There are a lot of good VMO exercises out there. I will list a few for you to add into your daily exercises which may improve things

1. VMO contraction: Simply sit with your knee out straight on the bed, push into your VMO with your hand/fingers. Practice pushing the muscle bulk of the vmo out into your hand/fingers. Do this with a 25.50.75.100% force, a few times each and building it up. Try and isolate your VMO as best you can as you step up how hard you are activating it.

2. Squats w/ a ball / large towel rolled between your legs. Do some slow squats against a wall while pushing in on a ball or towel between your legs. Keep them slow and controlled, and try and keep even pressure when you push in. (75% the hardest you can). A single squat in this exercise should take you 10 seconds, including a 3 second hold once you are at the bottom of the squat. Only squat deep enough so you don't have any pain etc.

3. Taping. You can try to tape your knee to improve VMO activation. Can help in retraining activation patterns while exercising. Have a friend help you here, you have to slide your knee cap medially (inwards) slightly and tape it down. Make sure you are not allergic / sensitive to any tapes etc. before doing this. If it irritates at all, take the tape off immediately.

If you search McConnell taping you will find some videos describing this technique. i.e. YouTube - Patellofemoral McConnell taping

Give some of these a shot, while still releasing your ITB/glut med etc. Work on increasing your hip stability and activation so that you aren't overusing glut med/tfl etc as well.

Hope some of this helps! We are getting there piece by piece, put all these suggestions are make a daily routine which you can follow and progress to ensure you cover the many aspects of your problem. Make sure not to forget about your body mechanics and ergonomics when you perform daily tasks. it's all well and good to do these exercises each morning etc. but if you are not transferring the ideas into things you do during your day, you will probably not get as good of an outcome!

Regards, musculoman.