What Are The Causes Of My Knee Pain, And How To Treat It?
Knee pain is common in all ages with many causes, from acute injuries to complications of medical conditions. Knee pain may also be caused by an injury, such as a ruptured ligament or torn cartilage. The treatment of patients’ knee pain will depend on the underlying cause.
What Are The Causes Of Knee Pain?
The causes of Knee pain include a sudden injury, overuse, or an underlying condition, such as arthritis. Treatment will vary depending on the grounds. Knee injury symptoms may include swelling, stiffness, and pain in your knee.
Being active every time is one of the best things you can care for your joints and the rest of your body.
The most common problems are the runner’s knee, sprained ligaments, meniscus tears, and tendinitis. In addition, if you have an old knee injury that you didn’t correctly treat may flare up against you for now and then or hurt all the time.
The significant categories of knee pain include the following:
- Acute Injury:
This type of knee injury has broken bone, torn ligament, or meniscal tear.
- Chronic Injury:
This condition may include osteoarthritis, chondromalacia, IT band syndrome, patellar syndromes, tendinitis, and bursitis, etc.,
Osteoarthritis
This type of arthritis is the wear and tear type. It is a common cause that mainly occurs at the age of 50. Its leading cause is aging, as use of the joint over many years is likely to lead to the breakdown of cartilage.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
It is a chronic inflammatory disorder that can affect more than just your joints. Rheumatoid arthritis happens when the body’s defense system doesn’t work correctly. It commonly affects joints and bones. It may also affect internal organs and systems. As a result, you may feel sick or tired and have a fever.
Meniscal Tear
If you have torn your meniscus, you might have the following signs and symptoms in your knee include popping sensation, swelling, or stiffness. Sometimes pain may arise, especially when twisting or rotating your knee. In addition, you may feel difficulty while straightening your knee fully.
Chondromalacia
Chondromalacia patella is the common condition causing pain in the kneecap. It may affect any of your joints. It is a cause of improper knee alignment is the cause and simply resting doesn’t provide relief. It usually begins as a small area of softened cartilage that may be painful. Chondromalacia patella is often called a runner’s knee.
IT Band Syndrome
Iliotibial band syndrome( ITBS ), also known as ITB syndrome, is one of the runners’ most common overuse injuries. This type of syndrome occurs when the “iliotibial band-a,” a thick band of connective tissue, is inflamed. The Iliotibial band will help your knee stabilize and move the knee joint.
Patellar Syndrome
Patellofemoral pain syndrome(PFPS) is characterized by knee pain ranging from severe to mild discomfort. Runner’s knee is one of the common patella injuries. In addition, cartilage is often injured in kneecap trauma.
Tendonitis
Tendonitis is short-term inflammation in the tendons. This type of pain may go away in just a few days if you get some rest and physical therapy. Tendonitis results from micro-tears in the tendon when overloaded by sudden or heavy force.
Bursitis
The common symptoms of bursitis of the knee are pain and swelling. It tends to come on gradually over time. Sometimes it will lead to severe risks. Signs often come and go and aren’t always consistent, making it hard to diagnose. If, however, the bursitis of the knee is caused by an injury, symptoms will usually develop very rapidly.
What Are The Symptoms Of A Bad Knee?
- Swelling of knee
- Heat and redness in the knee
- Some range of motions at the knee joint
What Are The Common Knee Pain Treatments?
For most patients, pain management specialists will prescribe medications and rest for a short period. But long term medications will lead to many severe side effects. Therefore, our pain management specialist will use some techniques for knee pain relief such as medical massage, manual therapy, ultrasound, stretches, and some exercises. These techniques, in many cases, will give good results.
What Can I Do For The Knee Pain?
Hot and cold therapy is the more accessible go-to remedy for knee pain. Heat effectively relaxes and soothes. Not only does this allow muscles and joints to rest and unstiffen, but by stimulating blood flow, you will also improve your range of motion. The following things you have to do if you are experiencing knee pain:
- Rest your knee.
- Compress your knee using elastic bandages or straps to wrap the joint
- Ice it to curb pain and swelling.
- Take some anti-inflammatory medications for knee pain.
- You have to elevate your knee with any pillow under your heel while sitting down to reduce swelling.
Practice stretching and strengthening exercises in some cases.
What To Expect When I Visit The Pain Relief Clinic
A typical visit will involve our doctor first understanding your medical history, concerns and previous experience with other pain treatments.
For patients who have consulted many people but have yet to receive a clear diagnosis, selecting an affordable imaging scan might be recommended to confirm the cause of your pain..
Some patients have already done scans with other doctors for their pain condition but are still not clearly told what they suffer from.
Dr Terence Tan is happy to offer you a second opinion and recommend how best to manage your condition.
We also see patients who already have a confirmed diagnosis from specialist pain doctors, but are "stuck” because treatment options offered are not practical or acceptable.
We can help by discussing options that you might have potentially never been told of.
A common experience is when a patient has already consulted a specialist doctor for pain management and is told to consider orthopaedic surgery which they find too aggressive.
Or they may have seen doctors for their pain and were prescribed painkillers with potential side effects which made them feel uncomfortable.
Many of our patients have also first tried complementary treatments or acupuncture with traditional Chinese pain doctors.
They look for a second opinion after finding any relief experienced from other treatments to be temporary or requiring repetitive treatments, which add up to time and cost.
Especially in such situations, we emphasize using non-invasive medical technology you likely have not been told about .
This can make a big difference to your results.