How I Fixed My Knees and Learned to Walk [Gizmodo]


When I was a kid, I had bad knees. Really bad. I'd run a mile and limp for weeks. Well past my teenage years and into my early twenties, I thought I was just stuck with these knees. But then I found a way to fix them. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Here's how it happened.
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The Bad Days

Brief disclaimer: Everyone's body is different. This is what worked for my specific knees and their specific problems. You may have different knee problems, which means that what worked for me could hurt you. See a doctor or a physical therapist.
Here's a brief history of my body. Starting around age 12, I started getting knee pain. When dealing with me, a lazy, pubescent boy in the early 1990s, a doctor would just say, "Osgood-Schlatter. Case closed." No x-rays, no testing. It'll go away in a couple years, they said. But it didn't. It got worse.
By the time I was in high school, it was so bad that I couldn't do the five minutes of jogging at the beginning of P.E. Instead, I did push-ups and crunches while everybody else ran. Eventually I was doing sets of 70 pushups, and I looked like I was in pretty good shape. But nobody knew that I couldn't jog without keeling over.Long walks weren't any easier. I started spending weekends inside with ice packs on my knees.

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