knee pain can be fixed
8 years ago, I tore my MCL, and my doctor told me I'd never be able to run again. there was damage to my cartilage, and I was told I would have chronic knee instability for life. he was right - I felt sharp knee pain when playing sports, walking up the stairs, and just getting out of my office chair.
for 5 years, I took the doctors word for gospel. I thought my knee pain was out of my control, and had a defeatist attitude. I lived with the pain and figured that there wasn't much I could do about it. my friends actually used to call me 'brittle boy' because I couldn't show up to basketball games.
I eventually had an epiphany. this was only a problem to be solved. it was an engineering problem, so I approached it as an engineer.
what did I do if my robots had a weak joint? well, the first step would be diagnosis, and the main question I would ask is; are the structures around it strong & stable?
if the joint was weak, the answer to this question was almost always a no. it's very rare for a single mechanism to be loose & unstable while the entire system is structurally sound - that means you are either are doing something janky, or the foundations are not built right.
I just had to apply the same logic to my knees. if my knees were so messed up, what about the muscles around them? I quickly realized that I neglected all of the surrounding muscles. I had never heard about the rectus femoris, gastrocnemius, piriformis, glute med, or even the hip flexors before, let alone trained them.
I started to obsess over health & the body. I took courses, I would make friends with physiotherapists, and I would spend lots of time working out & trying out new exercises [1]. I put in the work, I strengthened the surrounding muscles, and I've been living a very healthy life ever since.
I'm running my first 5K next week. so much for never running again.
[1] if you are currently in knee pain, save yourself time & money and search up the kneesovertoesguy on youtube.