Treatment
The treatment regimen that I was given that resulted in me being able to run again was this:
1. My PT stretched out my quads and hip flexors in a very controlled manner in order to get initial flexibility back into my knee. This was critical. Without it, the standing quad stretches just irritated my knee more. When he got my knee flexible, then my stretches helped instead of setting me back.
He did the stretches 2 ways: the first one, I would lay on my left side, and he would bend my knee 90 degrees and gradually strectch my hip flexors. Second, I would lay on my stomach and he would very, very carefully and controlled push my foot toward my glutes. Progress was slow, but it did happen.
The most important things I can say here is that my PT was not overly agressive in the stretching. Sometimes I wouldn't feel a pull at all. The way he explained it was that there is a very small margin that we have to operate within--meaning that we can't overstretch because that will agravate your knee, but we can't understretch. Too little won't do enough.
(Note: I am not a PT or health professional, so if you are finding errors in my description, there's nothing I can do--I just try to describe it the best I can.)
2. Standing Quad stretches, 50 per day, ten seconds each. I did these for about 2 weeks, coupled with 1-2 PT visits per week.
3. When I was at my PT visits, I did shuttle exercises, very light.
4. I rode the exercise bike. I was very wary about this because any bike exercises just made my knee worse. I road the bike only on like week 3, but after I had been stretching for a couple weeks.
Numbers 3 and 4 were only a few times--not an ongoing exercise. The main solution was the stretching by my PT and the stretches I FAITHFULLY did at home.
