Re: knee pain

hintofsmile wrote:
I donno if my chiropractor is bullshitting me

Almost certainly. Most of chiropractic has no scientific basis beyond that taken from legitimate physiotherapists. Has he tried to tell you he can cure your kid's ADHD by 'manipulating the plates of his skull' yet? That'll cure the kid...of everything, including living.

just so he can keep
another client.

That's the thing with chiropractic: it only works as long as you keep coming back over and over again, kinda like a little bit of improper physiotherapy and a lot of placebo. There is a minority of really good chiropractors out there, but given the proportion of bad to good, odds are yours is a bad one.

 Let me know what you think:

I have some pain around both knees. My chiropractor took an X-ray

Probably completely unnecessary for you, but it'll help keep his pockets well lined.

and
found "right sacroiliac joint fixation

I hope he wasn't x-raying your knees to find this...? It's also BS: sacroiliac joints that are not pretty darn well fixed are a recipy for pain.

causing bio-mechanical strain to
lower extremities.


And exactly how was this happening?

Subluxation of 5th lumbar." On top of the knee pain, my legs have been weaker and unsteady in
general, and I sometimes feel pain shooting down my left leg.

While subluxations are kinda the chiropractic version of the bogey man, used to frighten clients into unnecessary and costly fake treatments, what you describe could be serious, and seriously aggrivated by chiropractic manipulation. Take the x-rays to a medical doctor. If the vertebrae is wonky enough to stuff with your legs, and it would have to be EXTREMELY off in most cases, you could be having some spinal cord compression.

While I
can accept that a messed up sacroiliac joint can cause the shooting
pain,

Generally it's the sciatic nerve that causes the leg shooting pain, not the SI joint. SI joint shooting pain feels like someone is pushing a nail into your SI joint.

I'm less certain about its affect on my knees. 

See a real doctor.

I'll describe my injury.  It happened last summer, when I abused my
back deadlifting and squatting too much weight (I did mostly sumo
deadlifts because I'm tall and thin).  Consequently, I had some lower
back pain, but that was recovering on its own so I wasn't really
bothered.

However, my left knee started to feel strange a few weeks after I
stopped lifting (because of school).  It wasn't a painful sensation,
but felt more like an unusual tension around the knee joint.  For the
next few weeks the discomfort became more apparent and my knee started
to hurt after walking.  Soon, I was reduced to always walking at half
speed with a slight limp.

Could very well be a back problem, especially considering you've said your "legs have been weaker and unsteady in
general". See a doctor.


I went to see a orthopedist, who X-rayed and MRIed my knee and saw
nothing wrong (except a slight outward-shifted kneecap).

See a rheumatologist. Orthopaedic surgeons don't see anything wrong unless they can operate on it :-)

Soon, my other leg was having the same problem.  I also noticed that my
legs were becoming weak and unsteady.  I tried acupuncture (on the
knees) and acupressure (on my lower back) with no improvement.  Finally
I went to a chiropractor and he gave me the diagnosis I described
above.

See a rheumatologist. A chiropractor could do a lot more harm than just lightening your wallet.

Cheers,

Ari


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