Back in August 2020, as I was training to become a state park ranger, I was working out every day of the week between CrossFit, running, and swimming. I pretty quickly developed a lot of right knee pain, accompanied by weakness and a loss of mobility. Squatting and running both resulted in near immediate pain. Having never experienced that before, I called my doctor (I don't want to say what health care provider I have, but it rhymes with Paiser Kermanente).
My physician's suggestion was to stop working out for 6 weeks, take ibuprofen every 4 hours, and ice my knee twice a day. Not the solution I was hoping to hear. Cut to 6 weeks later, most of the pain has subsided, but my mobility is still hampered, and I've lost a lot of strength overall.
I get an inconclusive x-ray, am FINALLY put in touch with a physical therapist, via a 15 minute video call, and receive a short set of exercises I'm told to do every day, and to check in in another 4 weeks. The exercises were minimally helpful, but it still didn't feel comfortable getting back to the same training routine I was on before. Workouts are the foundation of my self-care and therapy, so by this point I felt like I was in a very weakened state.
Out of sheer curiosity, I looked to see what other physical therapists were out there. Pro+Kinetix stood out specifically because of their focus on athletic performance - which was never something that felt prioritized by my doctor.
From my first phone call with Dr. Ben, I already felt like this place was more invested in my treatment and getting me back on track with my training than my doctors were at any point over the last two months. I was able to get in the same week with Dr. Nima for an evaluation, and knew after our first session that this was what I should've done from the start.
Dr. Nima asked about my medical history, walked me through some tests to gauge my weak spots and mobility, and deduced that I had a slightly torn meniscus, which was being aggravated by weak IT band and hamstring muscles. We landed on six weeks for a plan of treatment.
Six weeks: the same amount of time I was told to rest before I could even SPEAK to a physical therapist through my doctor. Within two weeks, I had my mobility back (I could go into deep squats again!), after four weeks I was able to run a 5K at a leisurely pace, and by the end of treatment, I was back to doing sprints and back squats with a barbell.
This is all to say, I came to Pro+Kinetix simply looking for answers, and I left with awesome results from a team of people who I felt genuinely cared about getting me back to 100% and then some.
It's really frustrating to look back on how much time I spent getting the run around from my "health care provider". If you're in a similar position, do yourself a big favor, save a lot of time, energy, and pain, and holler at Pro+Kinetix. read more
