Yoga Obsession

I am not an obsessive person normally and never get too excited about much, but I am nutso over Bikram yoga. Although it is the major part of my fitness regime right now and very time consuming, that is not why I do it. I do realize weights and cardio are essential too. I get great results from that combo and am fitting them in even though it is hard when you practice yoga 90 minutes a day.
Last January I injured my miniscus cartilage in my right knee. I had previously torn my left one years ago and never had surgery on that one but this time I was really taken down with it. It was very painful and swollen. My right knee was twice as big as the other one. I had lost mobility and spent weeks with my knee up. Getting up and down was hard. Steps were impossible. I had an MRI and then had a call about the surgery. Instead of wanting to repair it they wanted to cut out the whole thing. They told me to go ahead and schedule surgery at my convenience.
WHAAA???
I mean I had a ton of questions and they had someone from pt call me. Basically when I asked the outcome and future etc, they basically didn't know. Would I be able to do yoga? Maybe, to some extent. Can I walk? Maybe. Run? Maybe.
I did not immediately schedule surgery. No way. I saw this is an easy way out for them and I was not comfortable with it. I wanted better answers. I knew Bikrams had helped me out with my back before, but knew I was nowhere close to being up to a yoga class. After the MRI, I decided to try to self-rehab my knee like I had my other one. I started by walking over to the gym at lunch that is a couple of blocks away. At the time, the walk over there was difficult and I had to walk up two flights of steps to get to a cardio room. I didn't go on the treadmill. That is where I got injured while I was walking on an incline. I had been running on the damn thing for years, but the day I walked was the day I got hurt. I tried the elliptical but that was no go, so I opted for the stationary bike. I think I went about ten minutes the first day and hurt afterwards. But I went back. In a couple of months I had worked my way up to going back for 30-40 on the elliptical. The pain was going away, the swelling still came and went, and the mobility was slowly coming back. Then I added back light weights. After a period of time I was getting better and then I plateaued. I still had pain, had about 50 % of the mobility back, and some swelling. I was beginning to think I wouldn't get better.
So I did research. Seems most people have the frigging surgery. Then I found a web site saying the reason cartilage can't heal is because there is no blood flow. So basically you tear it and it is like that forever. Then I remembered something that a yoga instructor had said about the tourniquet effect of the Bikram poses being about blood flow and several poses are knee specific. So I thought, I know with all of this swelling that there is a lot of injured tissue in this knee and any blood I can get flowing around it might further the healing process. So back to yoga I went.
I remember the first class, because it was the same day as my blammo weigh in at 221. I had gained a lot of weight during this injury period. Lots, so here I am trying to stand on one leg and have all this extra weight and am trying to self-rehab an injury. I was not in denial enough at that point to not realize the weight was a huge factor and contributed to the injury.
The first day back I was able to do quite a bit. I had a couple of poses, fixed firm and awkward pose which were impossible. I mean, my knee only would bend to about 90%. I decided to give it a six month try and signed up for a six month plan.
I went almost every day. I was being very careful and tentative to not injure it worse. I had doubts that first month because it was very swollen again. I thought maybe I had been wrong.
But slowly the mobility came back. Right now it is six months later. My mobility is back to about98%. I can do all the poses. I have lost weight. The swelling is gone.
There is no way I would consider surgery.
Knock on wood that I don't injure the knee again. It was the Bikrams though that spared me losing all the cartilage in my knee and am convinced if I had done that I would be looking at a knee replacement in 15 years. I also lost 33 pounds or so.
A lot of other good things happened. About two months ago I was experiencing back pain again and then my spine shifted, and my pelvic area reshifted. There was a lot of pain associated with it and now, no pain.
Now I am able to train with heavier weights again, but probably will not ever try to run again. I guess Bikram has a saying that goes something like you can swear at the gods but don't mess with your knees. Amen.