Sharp pain at base of left knee

My daughter did her warm-up today and was just about ready to start her tempo big circuit runs, when she noticed her shoe was untied.
When she knelt to tie the shoe, she felt a very sharp pain at the base of her left knee, she says the pain its where the “Patellar tendon” is. She’s taking sports medicine which she loves.
She says she was fine, felt nothing until the moment she knelt.

She said it was painful when she put weight on the left forefoot when walking, so I brought her home.

She is now downstairs doing Ange’s push-up/sit-up core exercise routine to compensate for not being able to do her normal workout.

Is there somewhere specific I can massage, or apply hot/cold to aid in taking care of this?

I would apply ice and get her to stop exercising immediately in order to limit blood flow into the area in case there’s a tendon or muscle strain there. You certainly don’t want to apply heat in an acute injury. Can you give a more precise description of the location of the pain?

Thank you for your reply.
I had already told her not to workout just after posting my first message.
She has already iced.

If I take my finger, slide it down over the top of the knee to the point where it curves towards the body…then into that indentation of softer tissue, right at that point… if I apply pressure with my finger she jumps and says it’s painful…it’s the same place she feels the pain when she pushes weight onto her forefoot.

Hopefully that makes sense?

Something similar happened to me bending over to pick up a book. Extremely painful but healed in a week or two. It felt like a sublux and then slid back into place.

Did she kneel into her knee with the pressure causing pain, or did she flex at the knee with the movement/position causing pain?

With knees I tend to think that the best course of treatment is to leave them the hell alone and wait for them to settle in their own time. Any direct treatment I’ve ever been given for knee soreness has only aggravated it and made it worse…

Try, not looking for issues at the knee itself. Look at the MUSCLES that control knee joint movement. Every trigger point you find, shortens the range of motion. And pain occurs in the joint /s
Sometimes / often, it’s the opposite muscle of the one you think…
Eg
I had Achilles tendon pain, right where the skinny part is.
Solution that solved it for good, was fixing the Tibilius anterior muscle
I spent 80% of time on tib ant, and 20% time on Achilles

She says she pulled her left leg behind her, stretching, foot to glutes… while stretching she felt her laces dangling, untied, she then lowered the leg/foot to the to the ground, kneeled to the ground, bending the left knee to tie her laces, then, after tying her shoe, she stood up, and about midway is when she first felt the pain.

I have the “Stop Chasing Pain, the top 10 trigger points…” copied from one of the threads here… I will look through it, maybe it can help?

Not sure I can follow your description. Is the pain located lower than the knee cap?

The pain is coming from directly at the bottom/below the knee cap, I assume where the Patellar Tendon attaches…but, as BoldWarrior said, the source of he pain could very well be somewhere else.

Are you able to get an ultrasound done to exclude the possibility of a partial pattelar tendon tear?

She says it’s better today. If it isn’t significantly better on Monday, I will take her to the Dr.

This evening I used EMS for deep massage (set on “stretch relax”) on her calves, hams, glutes and quads.
Then, directly after the EMS session, a longer hand massage than usual.

EMS and hand massage took about 3 hours…

A few days ago I noticed a large tight mass in her left leg soleus, it even felt like a separate muscle, about 5" long and 2" wide in the middle, and on the inside. Also, a small version on her right leg soleus.
I had worked on these 2 times this week already, but not being sure, I didn’t spend alot of time on them.

Tonight, I spent about 75 minutes total on the hand massage, about a half hour just on the left leg soleus, after which, the mass was gone, maybe only a hint of a little tightness. I didn’t want to over work the area, so I will work on it again the next massage.
The same on the right soleus, worked the much smaller mass until it was gone.
Quads and Hams were less tight than what they were the past 2 massages, and didn’t need much work at all.

After which, she was all smiles and happy… the pain is almost gone.