Never Fly With Knee Trauma :: 11th April, 2012

As the post topic suggests, never, ever, ever fly with damaged knees. The pain is insufferable. Normally I can tolerate pain in the legs (especially on the bike) but knee trauma does not bode well at 30,000 feet. I've just arrived at Hong Kong International and I couldn't get off the plane quick enough - actually I would have liked to have been able to get off the plane quicker but I had to hobble off so not the fastest disembarking of an aircraft I've ever performed.

The worst part is I now have to endure the long haul flight from here to London, Heathrow! Thankfully I have another couple of hours before boarding the plane so I'm hoping to walk around the terminal as much as I can to help reduce the swelling again. It seems the swelling in the knees does not agree with the reduced air pressure in the aircraft cabin and the resulting pain was not pleasant.

As an experiment for anyone taking a flight in the near future (I actually did this today), take a bottle of water on the plane, drink it and screw the lid back on while at 30,000 feet and then watch what happens to the empty bottle when you descend. Then consider that the same thing is happening to the body and you should be able to tell why I recommend never flying with knee trauma. So much for maintaining reasonable cabin pressure!

I think the only thing that kept me sane throughout the flight were a couple of cycling magazines I picked up at Perth International - if you can't ride bikes to keep your wits you can at least read about them.

Hopefully I will survive the next leg and try and recover in time over the four days I have in London so that I am able to endure it all over again. Oh, and if you ever have a long enough stop over in Hong Kong, I recommend the Spaghetti House at the other end of level 7 (assuming you're not a stickler for local cuisine).