dobo, your description of your issue is almost exactly how I am at the moment with my knee. I did a sportive a couple of months ago, tried too hard on a hill even in the easiest gear I had and hurt my knee. I now have a sore knee which is sore to cross legs , and in the morning, the arch of my foot feels really tight. doing breast stroke hurts as well when swimming. The foot loosens off quickly, but the knee part never really goes away.
spoke with my bro in law who has a medical background ( dentist – admittedly not sports science, but he does know how the body works )
He explained that what I had basically done was inflame the tendons around the knee area by straining them too hard. The inflamation tightens up the tendons a bit and that extra tension is the cause of the tightness in the arch of my foot in the morning and the general pain. Tendons have coatings which are supposed to slide across each other, when inflamed the sliding doesn’t happen so well, and can cause the pain issue. ( Thats how I understood what he said to me anyway )
His recommendation was what he called a long term chronic dose of ibuprofen ( or similar anti-inflamatory ). They key being not to hammer the dosage by taking a lot , just to take a single pill in the morning each day for a longish period of time ( weeks if not months ) . That way you have a long term amount of anti-inflamatories in the system.
Combined with gentle exercise that doesn’t strain the knee – but does flex it, it should slowly get better.
I’ve started doing that, and to be honest, it is working a bit. the tightness in the arch of my foot is gone in the morning, but the slight knee pain still is there. I also notice if I miss taking the pills for a few days.
Short term, the max recommended daily dose is 2400mg . I take a single 400mg pill each day ( when I remember ) … so i’, well under the daily guideline amount.