Heh. No one is more concerned than I.

The right knee really needed to be drained as much as it did in 2009. I had that crippling effusion for 18 months. Several doctors did nothing about it. The ligament damage I'd done to it had mostly healed, but the effusion wasn't going anywhere. I put a hundred pounds on my squat, but my right leg was getting smaller! The effusion was preventing development and causing me to hobble around. So I had to attack it. I'm glad I did.

Right now, the effusion I'm seeing may be transitory. Conservative treatment (RICE) may be appropriate, but I'm nervous. I'm so used to these things not going away on their own.

A clue to the nature of the problem is the fact that I drain almost exactly the same amount each and every time I go in: ~25 from the left and ~15 from the right. This leads me to believe that these are my body's current "set points" for my knees. It's the amount that my system deems appropriate to support the knee. Draining it seems an act of futility right now. It's very hard to say, however, because the 30-50 I used to drain from the obviously screwed up right knee used to be the "set point" there.

Both knees definitely are fuller than other peoples' knees. You can tell when I'm in the deep Hindu squat position. The bulging on either side of the patellar tendons is very clear, particularly on the lateral sides. At 90 degrees while sitting, you can feel the soft bulging a bit too.

Back in 2009, wearing the neoprene all day really helped so I've started doing that again. I'm wearing the neoprene as I type this and the warmth and compression make a huge difference. For example, I can drop into a squat with no problem on the off days as long as I am wearing the neoprene sleeves. The sleeves don't offer enough support under ~300 lbs squatting anymore, however, which is why I use the wraps in training. I'm going to start wearing the sleeves ALL THE TIME outside of training again for a while and see how that goes.

Good lookin' out yo.

It's synovial fluid. Look it up. It's in all the joints. Both my knees produce excess because they're beat the fuck up. It's called effusion. The fluid is supposed to be there, but it produces more when the knee is traumatized. It can be too much and sometimes it doesn't reabsorb, maybe because there is a mechanical deficiency in the joint capsule, connective tissue and muscle. The excess fluid increases the pressure in the knee and helps stabilizes. Its nature's knee brace. But too much effusion can inhibit joint articulation and muscle innervation. Signals to the muscle get killed and the muscle will lose tonus and shrink, as happened with my right leg which ended up looking completely deflated in 2009 even though I was squatting heavy.

I have pretty close to full articulation now because the effusion levels are relatively low, but it's still a problem. When I squat down my knees feel like their stretching apart because of the internal pressure of the excess fluid. I get temporary relief when I drain the knees, but the fluid comes back even if I don't do anything. Squatting makes it come back faster, but it will come back anyway.

Voltaren seems to have broken the inflammation cycle and stopped the fluid accumulation.

Left knee can still be problematic. Never got it to calm down as much as the right knee and it is still a lot fuller than the right at all times.