What can I do for my knee pain
Summer outdoor fun can often lead to the occasional aches and pains. Not every pain is worrisome and in non pandemic times you probably knew how to change your exercise routine to manage the occasional pain. But with gyms just starting to re-open and apprehension about in person classes, we’re getting a lot of questions asking about how to self manage knee pain. From self diagnosing to icing and bracing, read on to learn more about how to manage your knee pain.
What caused your knee pain?
Your injury may have been traumatic with a memorable impact during a sport, training or awkward stumble.
If you don’t recall an injury or painful event, then you may be experiencing a referral of symptoms from another area such as your ankle, hip or back. Weakness or stiffness of these areas may be overloading your knee.
What does your pain feel like
Pain that feels like an ache is often being caused by muscle pain. Burning or stinging may be due to swelling or a nerve related symptom. Sharp and catching symptoms are often associated with injuries to structures within your knee. If your knee is locked, physically stuck either bent or straight, it can indicate that something is jamming the joint which could be cartilage fragments or a torn meniscus.
Where does your knee hurt?
The location of your pain will often give a good indication of what your problem is. Joint pain can often refer down to the inner or outer calf. Local inner or outer knee pain that is the result of a trauma can be either your medial or lateral collateral ligament respectively. Pain at the front of the knee can be knee cap pain, the patellar tendon or an IT band pain.
What bothers your knee pain.
Knee cap pain often hurts when kneeling or sitting with your knees bent and feels better to sit with the knee straight. It can also be bothered with squatting or on stairs.
Localized front knee pain below your kneecap is often the patellar tendon or a small inflamed fat pad and may have been related to ramping up your activity or training too quickly.
Pain from swelling, arthritis and meniscus often hurts with putting weight on your knee or pivoting on your knee.
Is your knee swollen?
Swelling will often be seen or felt as a bump in the back of the knee and with filling in of the dimples at the front of your knee.
Hot swelling will often indicate that you’ve injured something with a rich blood supply. The faster the swelling the more richly vascularized the tissue. That’s why an ACL injury or fracture will instantly swell but a meniscus injury may not bother you immediately.
If your knee feels swollen but but doesn’t look swollen and if your knee isn’t warm you may be feeling mild generalized swelling for knee arthritis.
Were you able to continue your activity?
When severe ligament or structural injuries have occurred, your symptoms will come on quickly and you shouldn’t have been unable to continue your activity. These include traumatic meniscal injuries, ligament injuries (MCL, LCL or ACL).
Have you had any change in your medical history or activity level in the past few months?
Your knee is a joint that does well with controlling bending forces. Problems tend to arise when it isn’t getting help from other areas that control twisting. This can include your foot or ankle, hip or back. Imbalanced exercise routines, previous pains in these areas or a more sedentary period of time can contribute to pain at the knee where no injury is recalled.
Some medications such as antibiotics can have the potential side effect of tendon pain or rupture.
What can I do for My Knee Pain?
If you have a swollen acutely painful joint then resting from the aggravating injury and icing are the first steps. Cross training with a non weight bearing exercise like swimming or cycling can help you maintain your conditioning.
What brace can I use for my knee pain.
If a traumatic ligament injury occurred, a knee joint brace with “stays” on the inner and outer part that control your medial and lateral mobility will help to reduce your pain.
Pain with running that comes on gradually and is above or below the outer knee can often be managed in the short term with an IT band strap that is applied above the area of pain.
A patellar tracking brace can help with your kneecap pain. However, compression of the brace on your knee cap may cause an increase in pain so make sure that the brace feels like it’s helping.
A patellar tendon brace can often help to reduce the pain you’re having from a painful patellar tendon.
Arthritic knee pain will often feel better with a general compression type of brace. These braces won’t give you support but help to retain heat and can help with mild symptoms.
If your arthritic pain isn’t being helped with this type, braces that can decompress the painful area of your knee are the next step. These “offloading” braces come in different models and price ranges depending on your need. If you need help with one of these options, our team of physiotherapists can measure you and guide you towards the best bracing option for you.
Related Posts:
- Ice or heat for an injury?
- Meniscal tears
- Hamstring strains
- How to run injury free
- Shockwave
- Chronic tendon pain
FAMILY PHYSIOTHERAPY, ASSESSING AND TREATING PERSISTENT INJURIES AND PAINS FOR THE RESIDENTS OF THORNHILL, MARKHAM AND VAUGHAN
The physiotherapists at Family Physiotherapy have been providing high quality assessment and treatment techniques using safe and evidence based techniques to the residents of Thornhill, Markham, Richmond Hill, Woodbridge, Vaughan and Toronto. Our therapists are continually upgrading their skills and take the time to provide you with the one on one care necessary to quickly get you back to the activities you love doing. Comprehensive assessment and treatment techniques are always one on one without the use of assistants or double booking patients to make sure that you achieve your functional and sports goals as soon as possible. Our therapists would be happy to help you to achieve your goals, contact the clinic to schedule a consultation to get you back on track. Don’t let pain ruin your day!
Located in Thornhill we are conveniently located near Markham, Richmond Hill and North York.
2300 John Street Unit #7 Thornhill, Ontario
We have a few calf muscles: the gastrocnemius and soleus. The gastrocnemius muscles are primarily responsible for plantarflexing the ankle (pointing the ankle down into the ballet pointe position) with the knee is straight, and secondarily helps to bend the knee. The soleus, on the other hand, is found deeper to the gastrocnemius; it primarily causes plantar flexion of the ankle while the knee is bent, and secondarily helps to stabilize the knee. The Achilles tendon itself can absorb and store potential energy, which can later get released to help us perform plyometric movements. And since basketball is such a fast-paced sport with a lot of lateral cutting, jumping, and quick sprints up and down the court, it’s no wonder why so many basketball players end up with ankle and Achilles tendon injuries.
Rock Climbing Injuries
With all the repetitive gripping that is inherent to the sport, many rock climbers may develop what we call medial epicondylitis or medial epicondylosis (otherwise known as golfer’s elbow). Both conditions will cause pain along the inner part of the elbow and forearm. This is often noticed with gripping activities or lifting objects in a palm up position. These two conditions may sound quite similar, but will differ greatly in the way that they are managed therapeutically.
Stretching the wrist flexors and extensors can also be beneficial. This can be accomplished by keeping your elbow straight, try pulling your wrist up and hold for 30 seconds. Do the reverse by pulling your wrist down, and hold for 30 seconds. Repeat this 5-6 times. Now repeat the above with your elbow slightly bent.
Strengthen your rhomboids by having your arms straight in front of you to begin. Squeeze your shoulder blades to pinch them together nice and tight, and slowly pull your hands apart. Hold this for 5 seconds, and take at least 3-5 seconds to return to the starting position. Try this for 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps, or as tolerated.
Strengthening the weakened tendons is crucial to resolve your pain. Try holding a small dumbbell or a can of soup, and stabilize the forearm by resting it on top of a table. Slowly allow your wrist to drop, taking around 3-5 seconds to descend. Repeat 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps, or as tolerated. It is fine to feel a bit of pulling or discomfort around your elbow, but never pain.
Another eccentric training exercise for the forearm muscles is to use a bar with a weight. Place your hands around the handle bar, and slowly drop your wrist down using 3-5 seconds. Let the rope come completely undone, and drop the weight down on the floor to rearrange the rope back around the handle bar. Repeat 3-5 times, or as tolerated.
The meniscus (plural menisci) of the knee are cartilage crescents that attach to the broad upper surface of the tibia (shin) bone. The menisci are anchored to the top of the tibia but are still capable of small amounts of movement as the knee moves. Every knee joint has two menisci, a medial and lateral meniscus.
At birth all portions of the menisci have a blood supply. This continues for the first year and a half of life. As we continue to age, the blood supply to the menisci reduces. The outer third of the meniscus continue to receive a blood supply and the horns of the menisci tend to maintain a good blood supply. The inner two thirds does not receive a blood supply. This reduced blood supply limits the ability of the meniscus to heal from an injury.
Sporting event tears are usually the result of loading forces, in a weight bearing position with rotational forces. These traumatic tears are more common in younger populations. This mechanism is not commonly seen in sporting events with a sudden stop and attempted change in direction as occurs in attempting to evade an opponent. Sporting meniscal tears may or may not have contact occur at the time of injury.
Meniscal tears are named for the location and shape of the tears. They can include:
Appropriate assessment by a physiotherapist that is trained in sports injury management and assessment should be performed to identify areas that may have contributed to the initial injury. These can include past areas of injury to areas that perform or absorb rotational forces such as the thoracic spine and ankle, but should also include an appropriate strength and neuromuscular patterning of the hip and lumbar spine.
The first step after a knee injury should be to start appropriate management of the injury. This should include a thorough physiotherapy assessment by a therapist with experience in assessing and treating sports injuries. Initial treatment should include exercises to maintain conditioning level, improve underlying movement restrictions that may have led to the injury and local treatment for the knee itself. As initial exercise are achieved, they should progress to include functional and sport specific exercises with the goal of returning you to your pre-injury level.
The above pain pattern can be a symptom of SAPS or Subacromial Pain Syndrome. SAPS is defined as all non traumatic, usually unilateral, shoulder problems that cause pain, localized around the acromion (top part of shoulder), often worsening during or subsequent to lifting of the arm (Diercks et al., 2014). The above scenarios fall under the external impingement subtype, which include compression or abrasion of muscle under subacromial space. People with impingement type pain often have altered shoulder blade movements as well. If left untreated, it will lead to more severe rotator cuff diseases.
The humeral head – This is the top portion of the bone in your upper arm. Normally it should stay snugly fit centered into its socket, the glenoid fossa
Scapular muscles important for normal shoulder movement: (upper/mid/lower) trapezius, serratus anterior and pectoralis muscle group
While it may look like reaching up consists of the head of the humerus rolling upwards within the socket, the scapula and the clavicle actually plays an immensely important role in helping us reach. While the humerus rolls within the socket, the scapula upwardly rotates, posteriorly tilts, and the clavicle posteriorly rotates. Furthermore, shoulder girdle muscles (rotator cuff, trapezius, serratus anterior, pectoralis and biceps) have coordinated contraction and relaxation to help us with reaching. Certain muscle tendons will need to cross under the subacromial space in order to complete the motion.
There are 3 common varieties of acromions found in the population. Certain types of acromions will decrease the subacromial space and may increase the chances developing SAPS.