Hi all,

I thought it had been a while since I’ve given a blog update (apologies to all those who follow my progress) on the status of my knee and the long road to recovery. I’m still getting a lot of questions via email, which I’m more than happy to answer (email me) or alternatively use my step-by-step recovery timeline if you’d prefer.

So what’s new in 2013 with my knee?

Well, I bought an exercise bike, see below:

As I live further away from a gym I found my leg tiring without regular exercise – so I bought the bike for my home. On average I’d say I cycle around 40km a week which takes me about 1.5 hours (two sessions of 45 minutes) at resistance 5. The bike took about 15 minutes to put together and actually feels quite nice to ride – it has all the gadgets a proper gym bike might have, just minus some of the fancy graphics.

In other knee news, I’ve not been too bad in the very cold weather we’re having in the UK at the moment, last year I found my knee aching a lot more often. I even survived a slip and fall (on my back) on some ice, which to start with brought back some terrible memories but luckily now my muscles are stronger it did not effect the ligaments in my knee.

I’ve started running a bit more, now not holding back when running for a train or bus which is good, the knee feels fine when I run and I only get some mild hamstring aching if the running is up hill. The crunching noise is still there and I think it always will be but it doesn’t hurt, it just sounds awful!

Anyway I will post more content soon I promise, I thank all of you that continue to email me with support and questions.

So it’s been a long time since my last blog post so apologies for those of you who are after an update on my recovery. It’s now what seems like a generation since I had my surgery (although I can remember it like yesterday) and while my recovery is still on-going I am making improvements day by day. The muscle definition in my left knee is very slowly starting to return, although I’d still say its 40% off what it should be and the movement in my walking, cycling and jogging is becoming more like it use to.

I’m going through the rather stressful time of moving home at the moment which has unfortunately meant my current gym membership had to be cancelled – what I noticed quite quickly was that if I don’t go to the gym and get regular exercise in my knee (about 40km of cycling a week) then it starts to feel stiffer. So this brings me on to the crunching and cracking sounds that have now started to come from my knee.

When I move my leg from 90 degrees to 180 degree there is a definite crunching noise! I know, it sounds awful and it does make me cringe but it doesn’t hurt at all – I tried to look for answers as to what the noise might be, some people say that it’s the scar tissue from the operation breaking down inside the knee, others say it’s the sound of bone on bone rubbing together. Whatever it is – it does sound like a common after-effect from ACL reconstruction surgery – generally when I do more exercise I hear less of it so maybe that has something to do with it.

I’ll keep investigating what it might be – if anyone knows specifically please let me know