Physical therapy for knee pain - want to get back to running
Hey all, looking for some physical therapy clinic recommendations. I've been dealing with some knee pain for over 6 months now and have been unhappy with my experience/results with the two different physical therapist/clinics I've tried so far
Some back story; I'm fairly active and want to get back to running, hiking, and strength training again. Main complaints I have with the other places I've tried are; not enough time with the actual physical therapist, seeing different PTs and assistants each time, being handed a cookie cutter print out of stick figures for an exercise plan of ones I could've probably found on YouTube, and not working with a PT that I feel confident who can actually get me back to running, hiking, and lifting again.
Fairly desperate/frustrated at this point and would greatly appreciate anyone's insights and recommendations for clinics/PTs that they were happy with. Especially if they're fairly active like myself and have been able to get back to that level again
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100% recommend Pro+Kinetix Physical Therapy & Performance especially if you haven’t had a great experience elsewhere. Like you, I had tried numerous physical therapy clinics and was so fed up with being passed from physical therapist to physical therapist, assistant after assistant, and honestly just coming in and doing exercises that I had already been doing at home. No surprise I wasn’t making any progress. Anyways, my running partner referred me to Pro+Kinetix because she had an awesome experience and outcome too so I went and gave the first session a try and have been hooked ever since.
Every session was 1 on 1 for an hour with a Doctor of Physical Therapy, no assistants, only had to go in once a week compared to 3 times a week at the other clinics, and had 24/7 access to my PT for questions between sessions. After 10 sessions, I wasn’t just back to running pain free, but was actually running faster and had absolute peace of mind knowing that it wasn’t going to come back. 10 months later and I’m still running pain free and aiming for a half marathon in the next 2-3 months which they’re doing my programming for both running and my strength training. It’s truly been life changing finding and working with them
Here’s their website if you want to learn more. Definitely give them a shot
https://www.prokinetixrehab.com/
Andrew Montoleone at Select Physical Therapy and Jackie at GSports both helped me with leg/back injuries. I only switched because my insurance changed.
I highly recommend John King at Sport and Orthopedic Services. Years ago I had an ACL replacement after a ski accident, and the surgeon was the then 49r surgeon and said he only referred to 3 physical therapists in the whole Bay Area - one being John. I only ever saw John, never any assistants. He is focused on sport and functional recovery, and was great to work with. http://sospt.info
Ned Lockwood at Pacific Orthopedic and Sports in Emeryville is absolutely stellar -- a superb listener and diagnostician, very smart, very committed. Over the past six years he has helped me with three separate problems. Nothing about his practice is cookie-cutter or slipshod.
Have you considered that may have nerve pain and not muscular pain? One problem I had with many PTs that I have seen is that they focus on muscular exercises and stretching which exacerbated my pain.In my case, pain stems from nerve tension, nerve sheath strain, pinched nerve. Stretching does not work for this kind of pain. There are some gentle exercises that are completely different than stretching. I'm still struggling with the pain but once I stopped stretching, I improved, very frustrating. Good Luck!
I’ve been very happy with SOL Berkeley.
I was badly injured in a car crash this year and have had a ton of PT - from in the hospital to inpatient rehab to home health PT and now to SOL for outpatient PT. At SOL I mostly schedule with the same therapist, but I’ve also seen a couple of others there from time to time. They’re all great.
I was very active before, and I’m definitely not back to 100%. I’ve been at it for 7 months now and have made progress every week. The PTs at SOL are always tweaking my exercises to better focus on the problem areas which I think really accelerates the progress. I definitely recommend.
I see Jenni Kirk (@Renew in SF) to help with my DR, pelvic floor and IT/ hamstring issues. I've never seen anyone but her, and their receptionists are fantastic and make scheduling a breeze (and are super knowledgeable about insurance processes). Jenni has helped me differentiate between nerve vs muscle pain and her exercises have really started to help. I'm starting to see progress- my postpartum injuries were so bad I wasn't sure I would ever run again. Finally, she runs ultra's and is a mom herself - so she totally gets wanting to prioritize being active!
I've had excellent care at the Center for Sports Medicine (St. Francis Hospital) in Walnut Creek, and I think it would check off most of the items on your list. Most of your time is with the actual PT, the same PT each visit. The entire practice emphasizes helping the patient resume activities. I've been seen there for my knees, and I especially like the dance medicine/Pilates part of the clinic (with therapists who are both PT's and Pilates teachers). My husband has been seen in the other (non-Pilates) part for an ankle injury and, most recently, after having tweaked his back. He reports that because of social distancing practices, they keep to a tighter schedule than pre-covid, so he wasn't able to arrive early to warm up or stay late to exercise with their equipment like I used to do. Personally, I think it's worth the drive from Berkeley and I'd take a chance on any of the PT's depending on availability.