Hi, new to the forums. I'll give the full story.



I'm 23 and live in the UK. I do wall climbing, and started back on the wall after a month-long break. A new route had been set out and I tried besting it by raising my leg violently to get my foot on a high foot hold and... I kneed a bolt hole full whack with my right knee. I struck the kneecap about 7mm from the left edge of the kneecap.

For reference, a bolt hole looks like this:



http://www.dpmclimbing.com/sites/def...top%20bolt.png



The vertical piece of metal is what I kneed. I couldn't have kneed it any harder if I tried. It hurt.



I tried to continue climbing but quickly realised it would be too swollen and got down. I had to quit and limped home.

Here is a picture I found of my knee about 20 minutes after I did it:



Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet



3 or 4 days after the initial impact, and it was clear I'd done some real damage. I was still limping and driving was very painful (holding my foot in the same position over the accelerator became so unbearable I had to pull over and take breaks every 20 minutes or so)



Essentially I thought it would be healed within a few weeks. I stayed off it but couldn't resist a climbing trip I'd previously planned. This made it worse.



I went to the doctors and she said it was likely ligament damage - possibly the medial meniscus one? She was just a GP though - she recommended the RICE routine I was already doing and left me to it.



I visited a physio but all he did was try and induce the pain, fail (as it was 99% healed at this stage), and rub ice then ultrasound it. I don't know what more he could have done.



A couple of months later, in January, I felt brave enough to try and climb again. Everything went fine, I experienced no pain while climbing at all. But then when I woke up the next day, my knee would be stiff and in pain, like it was in the first few weeks after I injured it. After 4 or 5 climbing sessions it was clear it was degrading so I stopped again.



What's been frustrating is during this entire period, it has been 99% healed, but any running, hard cycling, climbing, or certain other activities have degraded it again.



Last month I became determined to fix this once and for all. I went to the doctor again, who recommended I SLOWLY get back into exercise. So I've been doing just that, slowly been doing exercises...



Problem is this: what exercises should I do?



So far I've been doing controlled squats, without weight, and hoped to join a gym next week to start building it back up again. I've also bought some ankle weights so I can do some one-legged leg extensions while sitting on a chair, swinging my leg out in front of me. Is this a bad exercise? I've also been told to cycle but it's been raining a lot here so I've only got out a couple of time on the bike.



My job involves sitting at a desk all day and my commute is 1 hour long by car. I no longer experience pain when driving, or even tightness, so it has been healing, just not fully.



But last weekend I played squash, and ultimately ran around a lot and ended up kneeling to pick something up from under a sofa... one of these activities has degraded it again. I feel like one mistake and I'm back to that all familiar tightness in the joint and it's really frustrating. Should I fight through this?



The state of play currently is this: there's nothing I can't do on it (except kneeling flat, which hurts my leg muscles in both legs and causes pain afterwards). Nothing causes pain during or immediately after (except kneeling), but then some time later, usually the next day, it will be tight or stiff or painful. It usually subsides again but it accumulates



My questions are:



1) What exercises should I be doing?

2) Are there any recommended supplements I should be taking?

3) When I feel this tightness after putting my knee through its paces (I can't avoid running etc. forever), should I fight through it and continue my exercise regime?

4) Why hasn't it healed in EIGHT MONTHS?? I know I've done some one-off activities that could degrade it but they've been few and far between, with weeks of healing time in between

5) Should I keep doing Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate? How often, which ones, and for how long?

6) How much longer should I expect this to take to heal?

7) Should I visit a new physio?

8) What if I get a real injury at some point in my life - will I never recover??



This is really getting to me now as I really miss climbing and just want to get back to normal. it's now summer again and people are inviting me mountain biking and running and stuff and I can't go because I know they cause my knee to flare up.



Feel free to ask any questions, sorry for how long this is but I wanted to cover everything.

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