The following is a question I received from Jeffrey…

Good day Bill!

Just wanna ask on how can i recover immediately from my knee sprain? Its been 3 weeks since i sprained my knee but i can still feel some pains on it, please advice me on how long will i take a rest before i can play basketball again? I’ve got my x-ray and my bones are fine so please help me to know what to do.

Thanks a lot and god bless…
Jeffrey

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Jeffrey,

Thanks for your question.

Dealing with a knee sprain can be challenging especially when you want to get back to playing basketball right away! It is important to take it slowly coming back because you don’t want to re-injure your knee and make it worse. With that being said, I trust you are following your doctor’s advice and doing R.I.C.E. therapy which is very important at this stage of the game.

What I would add in addition to the R.I.C.E. therapy is a homeopathic called Traumeel. It comes in both a sub lingual tablet and a gel/cream. I have used both simultaneously with my injuries with a tremendous amount of success. That is something I believe will speed up your recovery time.

Now this next piece I want to share with you is VERY VERY important, so pay extra close attention. Even though you got the x-ray back and there was nothing wrong with the bones in your knee there still may be issues with “soft tissue,” meaning tendons, ligaments, or cartilage that an x-ray is not necessarily going to pick up on. So as you are walking you will want to watch for your knee “locking” or “giving out.” This is a sure sign that you are having problems with the attachments in the joint. It is definitely best to go see an orthopaedic doctor to check the knee out further to be safe.

If your knee continues to have issues with pain then let’s for a moment look at what pain is from a fundamental level.

Pain just means the nerves in your knee are being irritated somehow sending a signal to your brain that you have pain. I know this seems pretty basic however very important none the less. Many times when you suffer a knee sprain. Your knee is holding onto a tension pattern that is protecting it from getting injured further. This works for the injury, but not for the recovery. So, it is important to take the pressure off of these nerves in your knee by moving your leg to a position of comfort. Of course, comfort is relative and going to be very different depending on the person and will continue to change depending on many factors such as diet, stress level, exercise, sleep, etc. The key is to find the position of comfort for your knee at this exact moment in time.

This will do two things, one it will feel good or better at the very least because the pressure has now been taken off of the nerves in your knee contributing to your knee pain. The second is the “fight, flight, or freeze” (Sympathetic Nervous System) portion of your nervous system will begin to “back off” which keeps the tension in your knee locked in the position it is in causing your knee pain. At the same time the “rest and relax” (Parasympathetic Nervous System) portion of your nervous system engages which allows your body to speed up the healing process needed for your knee pain to resolve itself quicker.

I know this is a lot of technical jargon, but it is actually quite simple. Take your knee to a position of comfort and the body knows what to do from there. You also must create the conditions to make your knee sprain heal as well. Think of the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Eating a proper diet, drinking the proper amount of water, incorporating the proper stretching, the right exercise, proper breathing, and sleep are all crucial to you getting over your knee sprain in the shortest time possible.

The more you setup the correct conditions the faster you will be able to get back on the basketball court…

Keep me posted as to how it goes!

Bill