Knee Care With Yoga and Diet - Ligament Injury

Painful knees hampers your every move and causes major problems while walking or sitting on the floor. You are unable to lift any considerable weight as there is direct pressure on the knees. There can be various types of injuries in the knees and focus of this article is on the ligament injury.

What is Ligament and its Injury
Ligaments are tissues which connect two bones in a joint. They are elastic and strong and provide stability to a joint and make the bones in the joint stick together. In the knee joint there are four ligaments on all the four sides of the knees. Whenever there is excessive stress to the knee due to sudden twisting or pressure there ligaments can be injured.

If you want to know more about ligaments in the knee region you can see this link here http://www.mdconsult.com/das/patient/body/0/0/10041/8841_en.jpg

My recovery from Knee Injury
I had written earlier that I suffered from ligament injury around Christmas time in 2008 while traveling on a train. While changing the trains I had my five year old son on my lap, asleep as the time was around night 11:30 pm. I was in a hurry as the connecting train did not stop for much time at this station so I ran with my son. I boarded the train and did not have any discomfort. At around 5 o'clock in the morning I started feeling pain in the entire left leg and it was extremely painful, almost to the extent of being unbearable. I felt pain even if I moved a toe. I had to take painkillers to get some relief. I had injured my ligament which connects the two thigh and the shin bones from the outside. It felt like as if the two bones were not connected well enough and the lower bone was hanging by the upper bone.

After I returned from the vacation my yoga practice suffered a lot. I was limping, and was unable to walk any considerable distance. I was unable to fold my legs. Sitting in Padmasana was a distant dream for me. I read a lot about the problems on the internet and books and studied the various postures which would help in this condition. Today I am cured and able to sit in Padmasana as before which is an indicator of the knee flexibility. I did not go to any doctor for this as I knew that doctors would only give pain killers. I found the cure with knowledge which I had, reading further and with applying the knowledge. I was able to do this as read a lot and try to understand the problems of the body. I would not suggest any body not to visit the doctor as correct diagnoses is must for cure.

One good thing which came out from this all is I know how to recover from Ligament injuries :)

Knee Care for Ligament Injury

1. Rest in Initial period
   During the initial period rest is very important. The movements should be restricted as much as possible. Massage gently with any good pain relief cream multiple times a day to reduce swelling. Applying ice is useful as it reduces swelling. Knee braces are very useful as it provides support to the knees.



2. Diet
   Start taking a tea spoon of Turmeric powder or turmeric capsule with a cup milk thrice a day. If you are taking turmeric powder then boil it in milk for some time and then consume it after it gets cold. This is one of the best natural medicine as it has anti inflammatory properties and it will also heal the injured tissues. Try to eat more vegetable as proteins from animal products produce more toxins. Reduce the quantity of salt.



3. Loosening Exercises
   I had mentioned loosening exercise for Padmasana in an earlier article. Most of my recovery happened because of those exercises, mainly the butterfly and half butterfly. Initially when the knee is stiff, do the exercises very slowly and do not stretch the knees to much. If you do butterfly and half butterfly in sets, then you will see that in the second and third sets the knees are more flexible. Have faith and keep on practicing them every day and recovery will be faster.



4. Kapalbhati Pranayama
   Kapalbhati Pranayama also helps in recovering faster as it increases the healing energy of the body. To see more about Kapalbhati pranayama can be found here.



5. Strengthening Asanas
   Once you start getting better after a month of so, gradually start with standing asanas like Trikon Asana or Tadasana. Asanas like Janu Shirsasana or Paschimottan asana which stretch the muscles of the legs. This will gradually increase the muscle ans ligament strength. Care should be taken not to stretch the leg muscles too much.



6. Awareness towards Body Balance
   When there is injury in the legs, we change the way we walk as putting pressure and using other group of muscles compared to what you would normally use. Doing so helps us to walk, but disturbs the body balance and posture. It is important that we come back to normal body balance after recovery from the injury. Just pay attention to the way you stand and you will feel the imbalance. To know more about body balance you can see the previous article here.