I grew up playing a lot of football, multiple times a week until i was 22 when i decided to run the London marathon and gave up football to train. I completed several half marathons and then the full marathon in 2016 with no notable knee pain. 6 weeks after completing the marathon i started experiencing a pain in my left knee when running which became much worse after running a half marathon later that year. I had an arthroscopy in early 2017 but the pain remained when running, two rounds of cortisone injections and various attempts at physio didn’t seem to work and by 2018 i had given up on running and began cycling instead. After Covid struck in 2020 I attempted a few runs again during the lockdown and felt okay. I continued running on average 5k per week sometimes stretching the distance a little and completed a 10k race in September 2023. Occassionally on the longer runs I felt the familiar pain briefly in the outside of my left knee but it would subside quickly after finishing and didn’t bother me otherwise. Then in June 2024 i completed a second 10k race and in the two weeks that followed i had to a do a lot of clutch heavy driving for work and the familiar pain in the outside of my knee became worse and a constant presence. After a few weeks rest there was no improvement and i began seeing a physio who initially thought i may have a small meniscus tear as well as ITB tightness (something i had always suffered with). After no improvement i had an MRI which diagnosed me with hoffas fat pad syndrome Further physio tailored to this diagnosis did not work and two cortisone injections later (one general one into the knee and one directly into the fat pad) still made no improvement. I also seen a podiatrist twice during this time who put orthotics in my trainers and told me to wear different trainers which again made no improvement. By this point it had been over 6 months since the initial pain started and it was severely affecting my life. I wasn’t able to walk any considerable distance or stand up for long at all due to the pain. It was constantly on my mind and my previously very active lifestyle was non existent. It put pressure on my wife and family as I wasn’t able to do what I normally would, I couldn’t walk the dog, I couldn’t stand long enough to cook dinner, I had to sit down constantly and I was struggling to drive which was affecting my job. It was seriously affecting my mental health as it was constantly on my mind, I spent hours googling the injury and far too much money on online purchases that promised they could cure knee pain. In the end I ended up selling my car and purchasing an automatic due to the increased pain the manuel clutch was causing.
In January 2025 I contacted Claire having googled who was the best expert on the subject in the uk and seeing so many positive stories online from her patients both on her website and on Reddit. I saw Claire in Feb 2025 after sending her nearly 7 years of knee related medical history that I had kept from all the various appointments and scans I’d had done. Clare noted that due to having high riding patella’s and a shallow groove my kneecaps were easily displaced causing the trapping of the fat pad more easily.Clare advised me to continue to ice the knee to keep the swelling down and begin strength training of my quads and gluteus medius. I was a semi regular gym goer already but Clare advised i needed to really build muscle and strength through low rep high weight sets within a certain range, working the muscles to exhaustion 3-4 times a week and that it would be 3-6 months before i might have the strength i needed to get back to running and been able to do all the things i wanted to. Clare also advised that I likely had neuropathy (due to being in pain for so long the nerves weren’t firing correctly leading to pain in the knee even when I was resting and hadn’t done anything to further inflame the fat pad.) Blotchiness of the skin, weird nerve type pain, and sensitivity to temperature were familiar symptoms that I’d been experiencing without explanation until then. Clare advised me to use chilli cream in an effort to help with this
After 5 months of working with a PT bi-weekly in my gym and sticking with the intense leg workouts multiple times a week i am now completely pain free. I am back running multiple times a week, something I haven’t done since my early 20s, as well as being able to lead the active lifestyle that I was before, walking and going to the gym regularly.
The hardest part of the recovery process with this injury was dealing with it mentally as it seemed to take so long for someone to be able to properly diagnose what was causing the issue and how it could be fixed. Claire managed to do this in a one hour consultation giving me a plan to get my life back which worked exactly as she said it would. For that, my wife and I and especially my dog are so grateful. Joe C