When I was about 10 years old, I went down the shop to buy some football "milk caps" (you know, POGs) On the way home I opened a packet, found I'd gotten my favourite player, leaped in the air in celebrations, and then collapsed as my left knee gave way on landing. Once I'd given up crying, I limped my way home, spent the next couple of days limping and that was that. Since then, once in a while my knee has given way. I might be running, or doing some kind of other exercise and my left knee will collapse on me. Sometimes I feel it going, adjust my weight to my right leg and then shake it off. Other times it catches me out and I end up spraining it quite bad. When it happened on the stairs about a year ago, my knee swelled up really badly and I was limping for about 2-4 months. I've always been a lazy person, liked doing things at home that involved sitting down like reading and playing computer games. This has likely left my left leg very weak which is why it sometimes collapses on me. This problem has really haunted me because if being lazy wasn't bad enough, it's prevented me further from being active. Sometimes by injuring me, but more often by leaving me with a lack of confidence in my legs and a fear of injury. After the stairs incident I took it to a physio who referred me to a hospital. There they did a scan where they found no evidence of a problem with the knee (thankfully) but a lot of wear and tear on it considering how young I am. So the problem is suspected to be due to leg weakness due to lack of exercise. The doctor has said that as the incidents aren't too regular that I should try strengthening it and using it and report back to him if I still have problems, in which case they'll perform a key hole surgery to take a close look at what is going wrong. So I'm going to try strengthening my leg and then see if that solves it before I resort to surgical procedures. I had noticed that this it has occurred more often during times in my life where I was less active compared to times when I was more active. So now I've decided that enough is enough. I want to re-gain confidence on my legs, get into good shape in general and it's clear that my left leg needs special attention in this problem. With my medical history over, I now bring you the point of this topic: Are any of you guys familiar with problems and conditions like this one? If so, what advice could you give me? Are there any particular exercise routines that have been shown to be effective? If this "giving way" of my knee is due to a muscle imbalance, which muscle do I need to work on more and how should I do this? Thanks in advance
I have an issue similar to that happen to me from time to time. When I sit indian style on the floor my knee pops out of the joint "outward" as I try and get up. It also happens if I land on my feet wrong. Now that I have lost some weight it doesn't seem to happen as often. I believe that strecthing more frequently has helped also.
