On Saturday, September 25, 2004, at 12:08 PM, Igor Chudov wrote:

>> I had  a very similar experience with old knee pain. Unusual to lose a
>> pain you had had for nearly 20 years, but it just disappeared and
>> hasn't come back. It was not arthritic though.
>
> Well, whatw as it? I am very interested in this.
>

As a college cross-country runner I had a series of over-training
injuries. The worst were my left ankle and knee. I finally had to quit
running because of the pain. Over the next couple of decades the pain
gradually reduced, but it never went away, and sometimes if I
over-stressed my leg it would get worse. I think the pain was from
left-over scar tissue on the healed tendons.

The cause of the injuries was the artificial heel-to-toe running style
popular at the time. Coaches insisted on it, running magazines had
articles on it, everyone believed it was the most natural way to run,
even though almost no one runs that way naturally! A long time later I
retrained my self to run naturally, and was able to begin running
again, but I had to keep my time down or the pain returned.

Several years ago I started paleo and I very quickly noticed how much
easier exercise was. After several months the pain suddenly disappeared
and has not come back. I began training much harder and running 10K
races. So far no trouble with knees or ankle.