Background

My knees used to hurt all of the time. When I would be standing straight with my toes pointed forward, my knee caps would be shifted inward towards the inside of my legs instead of in the middle of the leg like they are on normal people. When I walked up and down stairs my knees would creak very, very loudly. My orthopedist made a diagnosis of Patella Femoral Syndrome and sent me to physical therapy. With physical therapy, my knee pain became much worse than it had ever been before. It got to the point where my husband and I were looking for a new one story home because it was becoming impossible for me to walk up and down the stairs of our two story home, especially trying to carry something like a laundry basket.

The initial physical therapist I saw for knee problems had me taping my knees into place with tape, icing my knees with ice bags, using a cross country ski machine to build up my stamina and do calisthenics type exercises to "strengthen" my knees. This whole daily process was very time consuming, and yet none of these treatments helped me one bit. In fact, I was lucky to be able to walk by the time I was done with my "therapy". The knee taping took forever to do and really hurt my skin and the exercises just tightened already stressed muscles. Knowing what I know now about muscle imbalances and body alignment, it is hard to believe that someone who had a degree in physical therapy would recommend such ineffective treatments.

I dropped the orthopedist and physical therapist I had been seeing since I was getting worse under their care, and tried a number of other different health and alternative health practitioners for my Patella Femoral Syndrome and litany of other orthopedic problems. Eventually I came to understand why my knees creaked and pointed inward, how to stop them from hurting and creaking and why physical therapy made them worse.

Continued at Part II - Cause of Knee Pain - includes information on the treatments I found helpful

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