Knee questions answered

Here's the deal. I've been having knee pain for a year. It's always hurt under the knee cap or around the knee cap on stairs, going up or coming down, some days not at all. It started off just hurting after a long run here and there last January.

 By March, it was becoming more of a problem, interfering with my training. I added in some xtraining, when to my chiro, dry needled and KT taped it. Ran my marathon at the end of April with no knee pain at all (well at least not this knee pain, IT band issues on the other leg)

May- I rested for weeks. I xtrained. I went to the Dr. who told me it was runner's knee and handed me a paper with exercises. I did those, nothing. Changed my shoes- seemed to work went back to my follow up. No pain in knee (with the new shoes- and I wasn't running that much). Started picking up my running, knee pain back. Frustrated, called a new PT instead of another Dr appt.

PT- I went from July til Dec. Not much improvement. Lots of dry needling, ASTYM, estim, etc. I was able to run, just would get a day or 2 of reprieve. I ran well too. Thanks, Coach Becki! I raced a decent 10K, PRd in 15K and 5 milers this fall. My last race, the Turkey Trot, was the last straw. My knee was killing after it. I couldn't run, yet alone walk without some pain.

Back to Dr, MRI ordered.

"Chondromalacia and chrondromalacic osseous changes involving the lateral facet and critical zone of the patella with extensive marrow edema involving the patella"

I'm not sure what grade mine is...assuming grade 4 since I have "osseous changes" Feel free to correct me.

In layman's terms the Dr said "In any other bone this would be a stress fracture" Read- zero running for 6 weeks.  The chondromalacia means my cartilege is thinning/damaged. Options for that were a Visco injection or PRP. Visco is used for arthritis and isn't covered with my insurance (read $700-$1400 an injection that might work and might need to be done every 6 months) or PRP (platelet rich plasma which isn't covered by insurance and is *only * $500.  I went with the PRP since it is more a healing thing than covering up pain.

More later on the PRP injection.

So, what's in my future? I'm not sure right now. Although, it looks like I'm going to have to ease up on the running and definitely find my fitness elsewhere for the time being. I hoping PRP will work and I can get back to running since I'm running the Indy Mini this May 5th. I registered before I knew what was going on with my knee so there's that. Feel free to join me on May 5 in Indy. I mean, you get to run on the speedway! Plus Meb will be there! Discount code is BRP2018 for $5 off.