I have this knee problem developed during hiking; it is only on my right knee,
The syndrome is that when I am walking downhill, when my foot strikes the ground my knee hurts, it is not regular pain, but rather I feel like a inside muscle or tendon that is underneath my knee feel intense sore, and during this pain, my knee cannot exert any pressure on it (which can be very dangerous going downhill), this ONLY happens when my feet contact the ground and my knee is bend, however if my foot strike the ground and I try to keep my leg straight, I don’t feel any problems.
Also this only happens when I am going down slope; I have absolutely no problem whatsoever walking up hill, no pain, nothing.
So now when I try to walk downhill if the slope is not very steep, before my right feet hit the ground, I try to snap my leg straight so that my knee is not bending. Or if the slope is too steep, I use both of my pole to push the ground as hard as possible before my right leg hit the ground, however I still feel some pain, but it is a lot better.
I also find that before the problem gets worse, if I just rest for 5-10 minutes, my knee feels fine, however if I ignore the problem and keep going, I can get to the point there even if I am walking up or straight level, when I lift my right leg, my knee still feel something, just from my lifting up my lower leg, and the force it exerts connecting to the knee.
when I first had it, I thought it was just a small problem, so I took 1 week off from hiking, when I went back the next week, as usual walking uphill was no problem, but as soon as I was walking down, the problem come back. Then I took about 2 month off, I want to hiking last week for the first time, and as usual, as soon as I start hiking down, the problem come back, luckily, I was able to use that straight leg technique, hiking pole and constant break to make sure the problem didn’t get too bad. But it took me 2x as long going down than going up.
I didn’t take a lot precaution when I first felt pain, I just kept on walking which make it worse, when I went home, the knee was swollen, and if I try to touch the right side of the knee cap and try to dig finger deeper, I can feel the muscle or tendon that is feeling the problem, the pain/sourness goes right underneath the knee cap.
Sorry for the long post, I had doctors look at it and they find no problems, but I don’t think they specialize in sports related injuries, and my insurance does not cover that kind of doctor visit, because after the hiking, I recover in as little as few hours to a day, so this is not like some kind of problem that is effecting my daily life.
So I guess many people on this forum are into hiking, so maybe someone can help me to solve this problem, because I really need my hiking back, because I am already getting FAT from doing nothing.