The swelling in my right knee had been gradually increasing for several months before other people started to notice. By the start of this year, it became a focal point. I looked like I had a grapefruit in my knee.
Although many people encouraged me to see a doctor, I was resistant.
I hadn’t had any specific injury to the knee. Through my yoga teacher trainings and years of working with physical therapists, I know that the source is not the cause: the issue with my knee wasn’t coming from the knee itself.
It was likely coming from my hip or my feet — both of which had been pre-existing issues — and I wanted to address the problem at its root.
My fear was that a doctor would look at the knee and immediately want to drain it or operate, without considering other factors.
Eventually, I relented. I went to see an orthopedist — and I was proven correct.
When the “Solution” Makes the Problem Worse
The doctor hardly looked at me before asserting that he would need to drain the knee. He didn’t assess my movement, or seem to care much about my history.
He saw a swollen knee, and pulled out a syringe.
After draining the knee, he immobilized my leg for a couple of weeks. When the swelling returned, he drained the knee again. He asserted that if the swelling returned, I would need surgery.
The swelling did return — twice — but by then I had moved on to different doctors.
Draining the knee addressed the symptom by temporarily removing the blood pooling in my knee. But it didn’t address the cause of the issue.
And immobilizing the knee created other problems up and down the chain, which I’m still addressing five months later.
The Problem With Tunnel Vision
The orthopedist was trying to solve a symptom without addressing the cause. He looked only at the knee without considering how it fits into the bio-mechanical chain of my body.
When I raised the issue of my hip pain with another orthopedist, he told me that it’s hard to focus on more than one joint at a time.
The problem is that the body is a system of systems. Every joint in the body affects every other joint. When one fails, others take the load.
Looking at one joint out of context doesn’t tell you what the real issue is. You have to look at what’s actually happening when the body is moving through space and how habitual patterns might impact the mechanics.
Nothing happens in isolation. To properly address any issue, you need to consider it in context. Without properly diagnosing the cause, you can’t create an effective solution.
The Skill in Short Supply
We live in a world with an over-supply of answers and solutions. But those solutions are only effective if they are addressing the right problem.
The skill that’s in short supply is diagnosis: assessing the cause and understanding what actually needs to be addressed. This skill requires the ability to hold the big picture of the landscape while also seeing the details — and assessing what details are relevant.
Without a proper diagnosis, whatever solution you apply is unlikely to be sustainable — and it may make your problem worse.
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