ITBS

Hello all, I have been fighting ITBS for nearly 2 years now and am running out of ideas. I would appreciate any help or advice any of you would be willing to offer.

I will try and keep the story to a minimum and highlight the key points.

2 years ago, in January, I started training for a marathon (in June). I've been a runner for years, but at the time, my volume was probably not quite high enough to start marathon training. Training went smoothly until May when I raced a half marathon. The surface was slushy and slick in spots, which lead to an overuse issue with my adductors. During training, the only other issue I had was metatarsal pain in my left foot due to a lack of arch support. That was fixed with an off the shelf orthotic.

I ran the race as planned in June. The course was mostly downhill, which overloaded my quads. By the end of the race, they were so shot I was having issues walking.

A few weeks after the race, I moved across the country. This involved sitting in one place, driving a moving truck for 3 days. By the end of the trip, I was exceptionally stiff.

This is where the problem started.....

After the move I started running again. My very first run, I was greeted by crippling lateral knee pain. This pain persisted for several weeks after I stopped running. I immediately stopped running and began hip strengthening exercises and stretching focusing on my piriformis, glutes, quads and hamstrings. This routine did very little to help, so I went to a PT.

The PT identified a significant postural imbalance as well as notable weakness in the clamshell test and very tight hamstrings. Over the course of a few months, we addressed the postural imbalance and the hip weakness and made some progress towards improving hamstring flexibility.

At this point I started trying to run again. When I ran for the first time in a few days, I could get 20 minutes (exactly) into the run before the knee pain would return suddenly, without any warning. The difference is that the pain goes away quickly and would only be a slight annoyance...unless I tried running again. If I attempted running consecutive days, the crippling pain tends to stay away, but I can still feel a general inflammation. I managed to build up to 45 minute runs this way, but after running 4 days or so in a row, I started experiencing the crippling pain again, seemingly at random.

After exploring possible nerve issues, my PT finally gave up with a "maybe you should just stop running" diagnosis. After that I decided to take the Fall and winter off. I started running again recently, and am experiencing the exact same symptoms with no improvements.

The only thing I am noticing now is that the knee pain seems to be correlated with adductor and calf soreness.

I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas. I'm sick of not being able to run for 2 years