possible knee ligament injury

hi there, I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some advice. I have had this injury for the last 4 years and its really niggly and on occasion if I push it to hard unbelievably painful.

I do alot of cycling and played hockey for 12 years previously. The inside of my knee is swollen. I went to a physiotherapist and she said I'd torn the ligament slightly and if I cycled and carried out some strengthening exercises I would be fine.

I went to see my local GP and he was quite certain that all I had was a simple imbalance in my inner thigh and outer thigh muscles as cycling has built up the inner muscle and all I needed to do was build up the outer thigh muscle to lift the knee cap up a bit and stop the friction which he said was causing the swelling.

i was just wondering which diagnosis was right, if any of them.

its a long first post but any information would be extremely appreciated, oh yeah, does anyone know of the best knee cold therapy brace? I only found about the RICE method out 2 weeks ago, i'm surprised no one told me aout it, but oh well.

kind regards
alex

Hi

Where exactly is your pain??
Also what aggravates it?? cycling? walking downstairs? etc

thanks for replying, Its been reocurring over the past four years, sometimes its ok and I can go down stairs alright and then I'll go for a cycle and it'll be the day after that it'll swell up and get sore to bend my knee even. sometimes I really hammer it when cycling and sometimes I'll find it really sore to walk. usually the pain's on the inside of my knee and the swollen part is sometimes sore to the touch and recently I've been getting a different type of pain just back from the swollen bit as if its the quadricep thats hurting.

And also I was wondering, I use generic knee supports to apply compression and give support when its sore and that seems to help but what I was wondering is if there's a danger of becoming reliant on the knee support or can I just wear it every day until my knee can support itself?

I really just want to strenghen it enough so that it doesn't hurt after every single bit of exertion, even a long walk will get my knee hurting.

regards
alex

I was wondering I just purchased this book by Jim Johnston 'Treat Your Own Knees' and it supposedly gets good reviews and I was wondering if anyone has used this book, It hasn't arrived yet but I'm interested to see if it works

unfortunately i can't post the link but googling it will bring it up