Wow, I’m still in disbelief. Who would of thought that one cortisone shot to the knee would cure like 5 different issues I’ve been dealing with for such a long time. From Sciatic pain, to burning pain, stiffness, swelling, sharp sudden pain, all gone in one day.
Earlier this year in January I got COVID and my Twitch streaming journey was pretty much in jeopardy along with my running and racing journey as well. The stamina and endurance that I had was completely gone. So when I decided to introduce the Papicam (2nd webcam I added so viewers can interact and make me do stuff like pushups, sit-ups, dance, etc using the Papi Points on Twitch), I started to notice that my energy level was way lower than it used to be. Not only that by my knee really began to be sore pretty much all the time. Before covid I would jog 3-5 miles no problem. After Covid I was lucky if I got 1 mile in then would be in so much pain for a few days. So Papicam was removed temporarily till I figure out how to get back in shape but my knee was pretty much slowing down my progress. But even with that, I strapped on a knee brace and I would go for it. Slowly jogging one mile here, another mile there, working my way up to finally not only doing 5 miles again, but doing my first obstacle race called the Rugged Maniac in August 2021. It’s a 5k with a lot of climbing, jumping, carrying heavy objects, and more. I’ve done 5 of these and I love them. But after this race, something had happened to my knee. Normally I would jog and my knee would swell up for a few days, kinda painful to walk and squat down, but this time I started to have all these flare ups from my hip to my foot with sciatic pain, burning pain on my shin, was more swelling than normal that I couldn’t bend my knee all the way, and this is already weeks after the race. I was for sure convinced that I must of injured it during the race. At night I couldn’t even move my leg at all and just horrible pain would radiate from my knee to my ankle and getting out of bed was not fun. I had to literally grab my leg and drag it to the edge of the bed and just let it hang there and rub/shake it till the pain was lessened enough to get up and walk to get ready for work. This was affecting me at work, at home, in anything I did. Every single step was painful.
After debating, I finally decided to see a doctor to get it checked out. The fear of being told that my knee has a tear somewhere, that it’s pretty much mangled enough that I would have to quit jogging and doing those obstacle races, I was not looking forward to it as that would pretty much ruin me from here on out. I walk in this room, get about 15 X-rays from the bellies to the feet. They would put me in these positions that hurt so bad but they had to get clear pictures of my bones so I just took it hoping they will find no problems with me. But the X-ray dude kept humming and saying things like “hmmm” and “ok ok” kinda making me feel like he saw something bad in the X-rays, which pretty much sent my anxiety sky high. But I’ve been told that these doctors can work miracles so let’s see if it can work for me.
Doctor walks in, and he tells me that I have Orthoarthritis in both knees and a little on my lower back. More severe on my right knee but that’s what I have. When I run or jog, because of this, my knee swells up and it’s causing pressure on my sciatic nerve and also seems to be cutting of a little bit of circulation which is why I get the burning numbing pain radiating from my hip to my foot. We discussed our options because I want to be as natural as possible but at the same time, it’s been years since I’ve been pain free so he offered a combination of a cortisone shot in my right knee along with an anti-inflammatory medication to see if that would help. In that moment I just said “well I rarely take any medicine so why not, let’s do it”. I received my shot, wasn’t as pleasant but it’s manageable, got my prescription and off I went. Doctor told me that it might take a few days to feel it’s effects and warned me that it could lasts only for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and to some people even longer. I leave, I go home, and go on my usual day. The next day when I woke up, I noticed that my leg wasn’t in as much pain as the normal. The burning, tingling pain of my leg being numb was so minimal that I barely even noticed. I got up and went to work, and as the day went on, I noticed that when I sit I wasn’t in pain, when I got up, no pain, and I wasn’t even wearing my knee pad. Why did I wait 3 years to get my knee checked? The world may never know. 🤣 all these years pretty much suffering and being so limited by the pain, I could of done so much more with that time. This was a wake up call that pain isn’t the end. It can be managed. So next week I have my first session of physical therapy on my knee and hopefully this is only the beginning. Now that the pain is gone, I plan to start training and get my leg muscles in shape to see if that would help manage the pain. Only time will tell. Thanks for reading and Follow my lil journey to see where this all leads. It’s gonna be a long road but it’s not impossible. Peace yall
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