Thank you for expressing your concern about the knee pain you are experiencing. Needless to say, you are not alone and I see many young men in your situation at the Sports Clinic.
As Dr Sean mentions there can be several causes for knee pain and “runner’s knee” is a broad term for pain at the front of your knee. Important things to consider are
1. Swelling to the knee
2. Locking symptoms
3. Instability or giving way
4. Difficulty with stairs
If there are any of these symptoms, there might be something more significant going on.
In your cohort, the commonest cause for pain at the front of the knee is an imbalance of muscles with weakness in some and tightness in others. This often comes from the physical nature of NS and many people are unaccustomed to it, even those who are quite fit.
It may lead to a functional cause of knee pain that is remedied with rehabilitation and running retraining - both of which we can provide you. In most situations and X-ray and ultrasound scan will suffice for investigation but in protracted cases an MRI might be required. The main reason for an MRI is to determine if you need further treatments, rather than establishing a provisional diagnosis.
Probably best to ask your MO to refer you to your closest MSK/Sports Medicine Centre for an initial assessment and treatment. Pending this, you can try some simple quads, hamstring and ITB stretched. Hope this helps.
Bw
