This is a blog where I will be presenting the progress of my recovery from the surgery that I had to fix the IT band issues in my left knee. I presume people reading this blog already know that the Iliotibial Band Syndrome is and probably have some experience with it, so I won't be going into the subject here.
At the time of my surgery, I've been able to find very few blog or forum posts from people who had similar surgery done with more details than "Had surgery X months/years ago. Ran a PB X months later." In fact, the only detailed account I know of is this one, though it describes a more complicated intervention than my own. (I've no affiliation with that blog, I found it through Google and the only parts of it I read are the ones related to the author's surgery and recovery.) I hope to make this blog a useful resource for anyone facing a similar surgical procedure for their ITBS.
I'm a recreational road cyclist, and my ITBS started while cycling, though an ill-advised run was probably a factor as well. This is a short history:
- The pain first started midway into a 130 km ride in February of 2015. The ride was unusually long for me at the time, but I was well used to rides of around 90 km, so having the pain start at 60 km was unexpected. The best guess was that it was caused by a combination of factors: first I made made my first attempt at running just a few days before the ride, where I ran far beyond my capabilities at the time; then, I went for a long ride before fully recovering from the run; finally, I had raised my saddle as an experiment right before the long ride.
- During the spring of 2015, I made some attempts of taking a break and then gradually getting back into riding, but pain would invariably come back after a while.
- During the summer I didn't ride at all, but I did experience some pain on easy hikes a couple of times.
- In September I finally found an orthopedist with some experience with ITBS. Under his orders I did some passive physiotherapy during the autumn including stretching, massage, ultrasound and ESWT (link), followed by a gradual return to cycling during the winter. I had gotten back to 90 km long rides with no pain until it returned again in February 2016.
- Had a couple of cortisone shots and did a round of self-guided hip and glute strengthening exercises during the spring of 2016 with no success.
- Finally had a surgical procedure done on the 18th of July 2016.
The procedure done on my knee is resection of the posterior portion of the IT band, also known as open surgical release. This type of surgery typically includes removal of a piece of the IT band where it presses against the lateral femoral epicondyle, but in my case just a straight, perpendicular cut was done form the rear edge and about halfway across the band. I asked about the option of an arthroscopic technique to remove some of the synovial tissue under the IT band, but my orthopedist opted for the more conventional approach after consultation with one of the doctors who originally developed the arthroscopic procedure.
