11 days later update.
Kinda messed up almost immediately after writing that last update. Got finished with some personal stuff I'd been working on for a long time and decided to go out to celebrate. Ended up clocking up 10+km in walking, actually it wasn't too unpleasant until I followed it up the next day with 6+km which I think my knees didn't enjoy at all because a flare-up followed the next day. Same deal as before, icing and rest etc, tbh I wasn't taking the rest all too seriously like still doing the same kind of stuff around the house and whatever because I noticed this flare-up was pretty much how my knees had felt on a daily basis for like 6 weeks before they got a bit better. Also no stabbing which was great so I figured out it wasn't serious. It was pretty much 90% of pre-flare-up by Wednesday anyway.
Now we have kind of a second problem which is that Christmas is coming and Australia is very much not under lockdown, which means I have relatives to see and I definitely want to go places (is this a foolish thing to do? maybe lol but it's Christmas and there are obligations attached to that to some extent, also I still want to have some fun). So the chances that my activity level will be higher than before are high. I also kind of want to accelerate this whole process (being 18 and impatient and all), so I started some Ibuprofen 3 days ago (aiming to knock out inflammation, not really for pain at all tbh). Nothing excessive, just the recommended dose according to the packet (2 pills a day for the past 3 days). Idk if this is just my body or if the Ibuprofen has actually worked, but I've since been out twice in a row(6km and 3km) and not had a flare-up, wheras previously I probably would have. On the other hand it's offered absolutely no pain relief whatsoever as I don't feel any different to how I would have (and after the Ibuprofen would have worn off I don't feel different than when it would have been effective). I don't intend to keep on with it for too long, maybe just a week, and see how that goes. It's preventing full-on flare-ups now, so I hope those can be gone even after I stop the NSAID.
Still keeping up with the icing and not bending the knees too much when sitting. I definitely have a bit more of a positive attitude generally now, because it has gotten better so I know it's definitely possible to get back to pretty decent shape. Also I'm wondering if when I get to attending uni regularly, I might recover faster/more as I realized that when I was attending school in-person I was walking ~3km/day not counting walking around the house as normal (maybe one or two days would be more or less than that, especially weekends), so perhaps its the contrast between relative inactivity and going out for long periods of time that's doing my knees in a bit. So I guess that theory will be tested in February or March?
Yeah in conclusion, to cut a very long update short, went out to celebrate something and overdid it, got back to ~90% of pre-overdoing it, started maybe a week or so of Ibuprofen because I foresee myself being slightly more active over Christmas.
