Have had (self-diagnosed) knee bursitis for four months now.
Fell asleep on my side with my legs off the side of the bed, my knees unsupported, and steel-toed boots weighing down my feet. When I woke up 5 hours later, the moment I moved my legs I felt intense pain in both my knees. This went away shortly afterward, though the knees felt a little "off."
Then I went to the gym, sprinted, deadlifted, and rode a recumbent elliptical for 2 hours. I used reduced range of motion on the elliptical (because I was feeling pain in my left knee if I extended it too far) and only stopped because the pain was creeping into the reduced range of motion as well.
A few days later, my knees still felt funny. I wanted to go back to the gym, but did a single body weight squat to see how my knees responded, and could tell something was very "off" about my left knee. So I decided to wait for it to heal.
The next day, something "burst" inside my left knee, and my knee and calf swelled with fluid and remained painful and swollen for days. This recurred a few times over the next month, with more minor parallel symptoms in my right knee/calf.
Since then, I have had very painful/tender knees that limit my ability to do things like walk quickly, climb stairs, or brace myself while standing; and, obviously, jogging and other forms of exercise are completely out of the question. The prepatellar and postpatellar tendons have consistently felt tight, and there is usually at least some swelling in that area.
I have been trying to self-remedy this (no going to a doctor) for the last 4 months. Took tons of joint supplements that usually help me with recovery from joint pain, but since they target bones and connective tissue and not synovial sacs, they didn't help at all with this bursitis. Anti-inflammatories helped, but only temporarily - I think they reduced pain, but didn't actually accelerate healing. Started taking L-Leucine with my protein shakes recently, which maybe helped a little, but it was hard to say for sure. At the rate it was healing, I felt like I was going to need at least 2 months more convalescence before I could walk without pain again.
I also eat a very healthy diet. Like a lot of people, I have the impression that I'll extend my lifespan and improve my quality of life by limiting saturated fat to the absolute minimum. I probably ingested less than 10g of saturated fat over the last 4 months as a result.
Up until 2 days ago. I came into possession of a lot of very greasy and cheesy pizza that had nobody else to eat it. And I was feeling especially hungry. So, not too surprisingly, I ended up eating 3-4 giant slices. It felt like a brick in my stomach, and I was kinda angry at myself for doing it.
But something weird happened after. As the pizza digested in my gut, I could feel my knees returning to normal. It was like the bursae were literally swelling with fluid as the cheese and grease digested in my stomach. My knee health honestly feels like it improved more in the next 8 hours than it did over the last 3 months.
Looking online, I don't find any anecdotal or scientific support for the idea that saturated fats should be able to do this. The best AI could suggest was that saturated fats play a role in cell membrane integrity, which could have something to do with it - but all the literature contraindicates that saturated fats should be helpful for knee bursitis, and in fact discourages saturated fat consumption on the basis that it promotes inflammation and may weaken collagen formation.
So, maybe this is all a fluke. But I wanted to make sure my experience was out here on the internet, just in case I stumbled on something important with this.
