Knee Pain Treatment

The risk factors for knee pain include excess weight, lack of muscle strength or flexibility, participating in certain sports, working in specific jobs, or struggling with a previous injury. In order to prevent knee joint pain, these risk factors need to be mitigated.

Maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise is key to having a healthy body weight, which can reduce the amount of stress on your knee joints compared to those who are overweight or obese. There are certain jobs, such as construction work or farming, which demand repetitive movement that causes stress on the knees. If you’re fairly active and play sports, watch out for sports that put high impact stress on your knee joints. Sports where you’re at risk of falling and injuring yourself, like downhill skiing, snowboarding or skateboarding, are dangerous for your knees; sports like soccer or basketball are also risky because of the sudden changes in direction your body has to take.

The best way to prevent knee injuries is with regular exercise to strengthen the muscles around your knee joints. Strong surrounding muscles help stabilize and protect the area, reducing the risk of hurting yourself and causing knee pain or knee injury.

Knee pain symptoms can vary from person to person since the cause and severity of the injury or condition can affect how it feels. For many, pain, swelling, stiffness, and redness on contact are common symptoms, but knee pain may also present as a sharp, shooting pain when weight is placed on the joint, a constant ache, or a dull discomfort. You may also experience weakness or instability in your knee, you may lose the ability to fully straighten it, and you may hear crunching or popping noises as you walk or move the joint. Many people also experience back of the knee pain or pain on the front of the knee.

There are two main types of knee pain: chronic knee pain and acute knee pain. While the symptoms and discomforts can be quite similar, the causes of each are different. Temporary knee pain is often the result of an injury or accident which directly affects the knee joint or surrounding area. Chronic knee pain is not always attributed to one specific accident or injury, and is usually a result of more than one cause or ailment, although it is also possible for one accident to leave a person with chronic pain, depending on the severity of the injury.

There are many kinds of injuries that can affect the knee, including an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, which is common among people who are highly active and play sports like basketball or soccer. Other injuries include fractures, tendinitis, a meniscus tear (often caused by suddenly twisting your knee while bearing weight), or knee bursitis, which is caused by the inflammation of the small fluid-filled sacs that cushion the knee joint.

Some mechanical problems can also lead to knee pain, like a dislocated kneecap or hip or foot pain. If you’re experiencing pain in your hip or foot, it can cause you to change how you walk in order to alleviate the pain from those other joints. However, this can place extra and unwanted stress on your knee joint, leading to soreness, inflammation, swelling, and other pain.

Medical conditions are also a contributing factor to knee pain. Many types of arthritis can affect the knee, including:

• Osteoarthritis – the most common type that is described as a wear-and-tear condition when cartilage weakens and deteriorates with age and use.
• Rheumatoid arthritis – a chronic disease that is considered the most crippling type of arthritis.
• Septic arthritis – an infection of the knee joint that leads to swelling, redness, and pain, and is usually known to cause a fever and extensive damage to the cartilage.
• Gout – caused by a build-up of uric acid crystals in the knee joint.
• Pseudogout – often confused for gout, it’s caused by calcium crystals, which develop in the joint fluid.

Some kinds of temporary knee pain can be treated at home with rest, an ice pack, and over-the-counter medicine. However, it’s important to seek medical treatment and call a doctor if you can’t put weight on your knee, if it feels unstable, or if it gives out, if your knee is noticeably swollen, if you can’t fully extend or flex your knee, if you notice a clear and obvious deformity in your knee or leg, if you have a sharp pain in the knee, or if you have a fever that is accompanying redness, swelling, and knee pain.

At Icon Medical Centers, our expert team of specialists can provide you with the right care that you need to treat and alleviate your pain. We offer a number of treatments available for anyone suffering from knee pain so you can get on the road to recovery and get back to your life. If you are interested in our treatments of the knee, whether they are minor or more serious, please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team to book an appointment. Our priority is to help you remove discomfort and achieve pain relief.