Sudden Onset Crepitus

[Trm1692]

Hello everyone. New here this is my first post. I have a question and would appreciate any feedback as I am very concerned. I am a weightlifter. Over the past few years I went hard and heavy as possible in the gym and gained a ton of weight. Throughout all of my training and weight gain however I can confidently say that I never felt any knee pain or crepitus. In fact, it was probably the only thing that didn’t nag me here and there lol. However the weight I ended up at was not ideal for my blood pressure. I was up to 350 lbs. (6’6” tall) i decided to drop some weight and it melted off. Lost 70 lbs in 3 months. As the weight started to come off my left knee started to creak along with some mild pain. Shortly after my right one started with the crepitus as well. The pain is very mild when I do experience it. More along the lines of a general discomfort. I’m worried that I may have worn out my knees and am seeing the begginings of osteoarthritis. Another theory I had was that since I rapidly lost weight and am not squatting nearly as much weight my knees are decompressing and in a sense not tracking the same and may just take some time to adjust. But that’s just a wild guess as I’m not educated in this matter which is why I’m here. What are you guys thoughts? Should I stop squatting? I have full range of motion in my knees and again only occasionally a mild pain when they move almost like it’s rubbing. I appreciate the help. Thanks!

[BornToRun]

Hi Trm and welcome! I’m not a expert, but to me it sounds like it could be a tracking problem. My suggestion would be to book in with a physio and have it checked out now, before it gets worse and snowballs into a more complicated problem (e.g. before maltracking or whatever else is going on there upsets cartilage, ligaments, etc.) I’m not sure giving up squatting is necessarily a long term solution, as you risk getting into a vicious circle where your muscles get weaker BUT the maltracking is still there and not addressed. I was advised along those lines by a physio a few years back when I complained about pain lunging - address the issue by balancing the muscles, don’t run away from it by just giving up lunging. Now that I’ve had ACL surgery obviously a whole host of muscles in the leg are firing all wrong and I’m getting occasional discomfort squatting, leg pressing etc. The physio is keeping those exercises in my programme but adding others to recruit and balance the muscles and he is monitoring and correcting my form with squats etc.
Very best of luck and hope you can sort this quickly and smoothly!