About 8 years ago I worked at the local electric company. I was a meter reader. My job was to walk from home to home or business to business and to read their electrical usage for the month. It wasn’t the worst job in the world. I walked miles each day, could listen to music or podcasts while walking. I was generally done with my workday before 3 o’clock most days so it gave me a few hours more than most each day. During this time I was younger and it was a job to get by that gave me the flexibility to do something else.
The spring and summer was great. When winter came around it wasn’t such a fun job anymore. I wore athletic (basketball) shoes each day to have comfortable walking shoes. I also wore an insole for a portion of this job that was supposed to help support my foot and angle better. The problem came when I started getting pain in my knees, both knees, but more in my right-knee than my left.
The pain continued and only worsened. Finally, out of frustration with my knee pain, the winter ‘version’ of this job and my dreams not moving forward I walked away from that job. I got in my car, drove back to the office and said I quit. Each step that I took I was in knee pain and I couldn’t take it anymore. I never went back after that. My boss called me an asshole and jokingly mocked my dream saying good luck.
It was one of the best decisions of my life. Here I am today, writing about my dream and it’s a reality. Now I get to help you learn what I went through and how I improved my condition.
Looking back having the education that I have now I realize that both my shoes and insoles were both very unfriendly to my feet, knees and posture as a whole. The shoes were slightly higher in the back than they were in the front, as most basketball shoes are. This in combination with the insoles put my feet in a bad position that each day wore down my knees as it wasn’t in alignment.
My diet didn’t help either. At this point in my life I didn’t care much at all about healthy eating or living. Knowing what I know now I would change my shoes and my diet as the first two changes to end my knee pain. If you have knee pain I highly recommend reading “How Your Shoes Could Be Causing Knee or Back Pain: Here” as it will educate you on which shoes help and which shoes hurt.
If you wear shoes that align with your anatomy then this alone will help to auto-correct the alignment of your knees which is important. Like backs are adjusted by chiropractors, it is important for the properly designed shoes to correct your knee posture. If your shoes are facilitating in this problem, a change in shoes could give you fast relief and support the normalization of the anatomy of your knees. Think of shoes as a brace that helps to keep your knees moving in the right direction at the right-angles. In alignment.
I can relate to having knee pain, so bad that each step was in pain. It’s unbearable at times. Thankfully I found a few solutions that helped me a lot and speak from experience, and have learned other valuable ideas that can help also.
5 Fast, Safe & Natural Ways To Relieve Knee Pain
- Magnetic Knee Brace: This helped me tremendously. My knee pain was ongoing and I didn’t know what to do. My mom had a friend who worked in the natural health industry, with Chinese medicine in a lot of ways. He recommended that I get a magnetic brace for my knee. I got one and started wearing it each day and at night while I slept. It helped my knees heal and reduce pain incredibly well. I could actually feel a tingling sensation in my knee while wearing the brace. Magnetic braces help to increase circulation and alleviate pain. You can get one on amazon for under 20 bucks here: http://amzn.to/2hrM5AF
- Eat Turmeric: Turmeric is what I believe (from my research and findings) to be the most powerful known anti-inflammatory agent on our planet. Turmeric contains a compound known as curcumin which has incredibly powerful anti-inflammatory properties. It also helps to thin the blood (which can not be taken with blood thinners) but if you’re not on a blood thinner this can be good as thinner blood carries nutrients to places needed more efficiently. I recommend organic turmeric and to start adding it to dishes you cook with more often.
- Drink ACV: Apple cider vinegar is an incredibly beneficial thing to have on hand. It helps to alkalize the body, improve digestive health. Facilitate in the digestion of proteins and more. Apple cider vinegar helps knee pain by breaking down excess mineral deposits. It also helps to remove harmful toxins within the joint of the knees. It then helps restore lubrication to the joints to help reduce pain and promote mobility. You can add a spoonful of ACV to water in each glass and drink it throughout the day. You can also add a few cups of apple cider vinegar to hot bathwater and let your knee soak. Lastly, and probably one of the most efficient ways to use ACV is to simply apply it with coconut or olive oil around your knee. Simply massage it in. Coconut or olive oil both act as good carrier oils to help the apple cider vinegar enter the bloodstream in that area.
- Epsom Salt Baths: Taking a bath in warm water soaked in epsom salts really helps. Epsom salts are great for any pain, injury or tension in your body. Epsom salts are comprised of ‘magnesium sulfate’ which is comprised of the mineral magnesium, the mineral sulfur and oxygen. That’s all that epsom salts are! Sitting in warm water opens your pores and your skin can then absorb the magnesium, sulfur and oxygen from magnesium sulfate. Magnesium helps to relieve stress, tension and tightness while sulfur does the same but also helps to build a structurally stronger body. Add 2-cups epsom salts to a hot bath, sit back and relax while your epsom salts go to work healing your knee pain.
- Cold Soak or Cold Wrap: Just as a warm bath full of warm water is beneficial for circulation and a recovering painful knee (even without the epsom salts) cold water is beneficial also. Heat and cold have different properties and cause the nervous system and circulatory system to react in different ways. Heat is expansive and cold is contracting. Heat expands blood vessels while cold shrinks blood vessels. By utilizing heat in a warm bath that is helpful. Cold helps to heal the nervous system and increase circulation. Take a kitchen towel and wrap it in ice cubes, then wrap this around your knee. Do this a few times each day. You can also take what I call a “hot cold shower” which is simply turning the dial from hot to cold, back and forth, over and over until your body is fine in hot and cold water. This helps to benefit your nervous system and circulation throughout your entire body.
There’s really a lot more that you can do also. For knee pain or any pain in the body. Ginger and cayenne pepper both have tremendously valuable benefits. By simply making ginger tea or adding cayenne pepper to water, stirring and drinking you get circulation enhancing benefits that help your body cope with pain better, as well as to heal faster.
There’s a product that I use every once in a while called “Deep Blue” which is a lotion from doterra you can get here. This lotion contains a wide variety of both heating and cooling essential oils (that you’ll feel when you apply it) such as peppermint, eucalyptus, cinnamon, chamomile, wintergreen and others. I recommend using this product on your knees also for relief and comfort. These practices really helped me in relieving my knee pain. The magnetic brace alone took away the knee pain and the additional things helped my knees heal further and really recover to a healthier state.
Recommended Reading: Here’s How Your Shoes Could Be Causing You Knee or Back Pain
Image: https://vimeo.com/159931474
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