Knee pain after exercise, on vacation.

  • So my boyfriend and I are on vacation in Florida and have been for a few days. We were going to spend a few days at the beach and then drive back to Orlando and hit up some themeparks. Today is Sunday and we will be visiting parks in two days, Tuesday.

    I am currently doing the C25k program and this morning we did Week 2, day 2, but we went for a longer time/distance than usual. It wasn't planned, we were just enjoying the trails and ended up going farther from home than we'd planned, doing running/walking intervals for about 35 min(not including warmup and cool down walking).

    About an hour later, I noticed my left knee had some pain that hasn't yet gone away several hours later. It is causing me to have a slight limp and only really hurts when I walk on it. We've iced it and are resting it, but it's still sore. My bf is all concerned that this will affect our themepark walking in two days, but I think it'll probably be fine by then, though I may not run that AM as I had initially planned(we run every other day). I think I may have actually aggravated my knee a few days ago, while doing some jumping jacks because that was the first occurrence of pain in my left knee, but it went away quickly. Since then we've done lots of swimming in the ocean, walking and bike riding(which may have also caused some slight pain).

    I don't know how to describe it, it's not a serious or sharp pain, sort of a dull ache that doesn't go away that is focused towards the bottom of my knee cap, underneath the part of the bone that I can touch.

    Any suggestions? Do you guys think it will be ok by Tuesday AM for walking all day?
  • Experiment with wrapping it with an elastic bandage while you are walking through the park; that got me through my vacation - stabilizes the knee cap and gives some relief to muscles and tendons in that area.
  • I agree with BeeMom. Also, I would not risk running on it or biking during your vacation as that may exacerbate the problem and prevent you from being able to do all the walking you'll need to do.
  • I had similar pain a few months ago. You gotta give it rest. Avoid the activities that exacerbate it, but the ones that don't hurt when you do them are probably fine.

    And RICE it- Rest, Elevation, Compression, Ice. The latter should be twice or three times a day for 15-20 minutes.

    good luck!