I am sure most of you have heard the expression “The bee’s knees”, but what happens when your knees are no longer working well and they are the cause of serious pain and discomfort? Do you have pain on the inside of the knee or outside knee pain? Knee pain can be the reason you are unable to run, ski, hike, compete in a local CrossFit competition, or even play with your kids or grandkids. There are many forms of knee pain both serious and more commonly not so serious. Maybe you want to know what knee strain treatment can consist of or maybe you want to know what to do for a torn meniscus. Getting some advice from a knee pain specialist can help you to start the path of learning and understanding of what to do. Depending on what the nature of the injury was you may be in for an easy road ahead or a slightly longer need for help. Getting an understanding on what the signs and symptoms of your pain are can help you/us to determine what is causing your pain and help determine the best ways to alleviate the pain. To help understand the different types of injuries that can occur at the knee joint, let’s first discuss what the knee involves. The knee is considered a “hinge” joint and allows for flexion (bending) and extension (straightening) and aids in stability between the hip and the ankle. There are several ligaments and tendons that surround that knee joint that are important to provide stability of the knee. Without the surrounding support, the knee cap would slide in and out of place and cause potential injury and pain.
Signs and Symptoms Common in Knee Injuries
- Stiffness
- swelling/inflammation
- redness/warmth
- clicking/popping
- Decrease range of motion (unable to fully bend or straighten)
- Weakness
Common Knee Injuries
- strains/tears of the ligaments (ACL, MCL, LCL, PCL)
- Patellar maltracking (instability of the knee cap causing excessive motion)
- Muscular injuries surrounding the knee joint
- Potential injury to joints above and below that affect the knee
Some of you might be thinking right now, “Well the Dr. told me my knees are bone on bone is surgery my only option?”
Losing space in your joints is a normal part of aging – it’s a bit like going grey. It’s a change that comes with age, but doesn’t, by itself, cause pain. A lot of people, including 20 year olds have significant arthritis that shows up on x-rays but can be completely pain free. In fact a majority of the people you know have arthritis and don’t have pain. At KinetikChain Denver Physical Therapy we help people all the time who have bone on bone in their hips, knees, shoulders, and backs get back to all of the hiking, lifting, yoga, and daily activities they want.
Diagnosis can be made by MRI, but to be honest this is not needed. We can determine what is the root cause of your knee pain when combining how you move, what causes your pain, and special tests we perform with our hands. We often hear from people calling us to ask if they should get an MRI before they come in. MRI’s are meant to find damage, but not the cause of the damage. A hands on assessment from a Physical Therapist finds what is damaged AND what caused the damage. The MRI will not guide your rehab, but rather what we find with our hands on assessment does. Working on all of the areas that caused any damage and pain and not just on the area of pain/stiffness will help to give you the long term results you are looking for.
In the small chance you might need surgery-If we think that surgery may be called for we will order an MRI for you and communicate with a potential surgeon.
Treatment and What You Can Do To Get Relief
As stated above surgery and injections are one form of treatment but they should be used only as a last resort to alleviate the pain. Physical Therapy is the preferred method for knee pain in all but the most severe cases and would include hands on manual techniques, dry needling (if needed and wanted), soft tissue work, joint mobility work, stretching, strengthening, kinesiotaping (if needed), likely working on the hip and the ankle, and whatever else you needed that would get you better. Getting relief won’t take long and many people leave feeling better the first day. Even if you didn’t leave feeling better the first day it would only take 1-2 more visits max to start noticing improvements. However starting that first day you would feel better right away knowing what is wrong and having a plan to fix it.
If you would like more information on how we might be able to help you get rid of your knee pain please click the button below to schedule a time we can talk. If you know you are ready to get some help right away you can call us at 720-651-0674 or email at jamie@kinetikchaindenver.com.
If you really just need some more information the consider downloading our Free Ebook “The 7 Ways to Keep Achy Knees From Stopping Your Favorite Activity”. This Ebook has lots of helpful tips and information to help your knees and is yours just by clicking on the image below.
