Protect your knees

[ldhrelics]

I'd like to pass on a tip to protect your knees that I learned years ago in my caving days. If you are like me, you don't like the elastic bands stretched around your knees that are part of the standard knee pads. I usually hunt in camo pants that were left over from my hunting days. But the secret is to sew a pocket on the inside of the pants at the knees to insert a pad. I make the pads I use from the foam pads that go under sleeping bags. I make them about 12" long by 6" wide. I also take a razor blade and put a bevel around them on the side that goes to the outside. I've done this for years, and you don't even know they are there until you get home and realize that your knees are not hurting.

 

[Elton]

what a neat idea..Thanks

 

[vietvet]

Great idea,thanks!

 

[w6pea]

Good idea......thanks.

 

[fowlercharles]

That's a great idea and I bet would even work for me though I have been wearing a stiff type(not plastic) zip up snake leggins for 35 years for added knee protection. My leggins come barely above my knees and just a little thin piece of foam would probably work for me. Ole dudes knees sure can use all the help we can give them. Thanks, and HH! Charlie

 

[BusDigger]

Or.....have several knee surgeries which killed all the nerve endings in your knees

Good idea/post!

Smitty

 

[jbow]

I hunted for years using a gardening tyoe "kneeling pad" one of those with a sort of handle built into one end. I'd carry it in my left hand, drop it down and kneel on it to dig. Everything was fine for several years but I was detecting a LOT and something about kneeling on that foam, that even pressure across the knee damaged the nerves in both my knees. There is a nerve that goes across your knee, just below the kneecap, it serves the area of the leg just out side the knee. I damaged those nerves in both knees because the pressure was always the same, because of the pad. For about a year I couldn't kneel on anything like the floor, a leather chair, or crawl up onto my truck seat without screaming burning pain. I t finally get a little better but I still cannot kneel on the floor with my left knee and the area of my outside leg at the knee is numb on both sides but it has gotten a little better since I stopped using any pads. I can use "knee pads" or I can usually kneel on the ground if I am careful to lean a little to the right. I am on plavix right now but plan to come off long enough to have the doc cut those nerves and fold them under... I went to the "bone and joint" doctor and he explained it all to me and told me he could fix it but I would always be numb in that small area on the outside of my leg at the knee... but I already al numb there so if I can regain the ability to kneel without screaming pain... good.!!

Be careful with anything that makes for possible repetitive use injury and that is what some pads will do.. when you kneel normally the pressure is different everytime but if you kneel over and over on a pad the pressure is always the same... be careful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury

It is also called nerve compression syndrome

J