Do you have a Pain in your Knee?

Do you have a Pain in your Knee?

 Knee injuries are often debilitating and can limit you from doing the things you love to do. Whether it’s playing tennis, running, or just climbing stairs; knee injuries can be painful doing your normal, everyday tasks.

 

 

Assessing the Pain in Your Knee

It can be frustrating to find a practitioner who can figure out what’s causing your pain and perform the right treatment. However, once you find the right treatment, the relief can be significant. There are more than 25 common knee injuries, and most of them can be effectively treated with hands-on techniques.

A series of simple tests can determine exactly what’s injured.  If you don’t take care of a knee injury quickly, you often compensate and develop four or five different injuries in the same knee.

Pain in the knee can be caused by injuries to the ligaments and tendons near the surface of the knee or deep ligaments and cartilage located toward the center of the knee.

 

 

Ligament Injuries to the Knee

Ligaments are the strong cords that attach your bones to each other. The bones of the thigh and shin are attached by a series of these ligaments. Two of them are deep inside the knee, and four others are right near the surface of your skin. Ligaments limit movement so that your joints move in the correct direction.

There are two collateral ligaments, one on the outer side of the knee and one on the inner side. They are right under the skin and stabilize your knee during side-to-side movements.

These are the coronary ligaments, which limit the rotation of your lower leg and are also found at the surface. They can only be touched if the knee is bent to 90 degrees.

 

When you plant your foot and rotate your knee too much, this ligament usually gets injured. When any of these ligaments are injured, the knee usually swells, and it’s hard to bring your heel to your buttock.

 

 

Tendon Injuries to the Knee

 

 

The last of the surface structures is a large tendon at the front of the knee with seven parts that often get injured. Injuries commonly occur just above the knee, below the knee, or at the sides of the knee.

Injury to the lower part, just below the kneecap, is one of the most common problems. When this tendon is injured, it causes a lot of pain going up and down stairs. This section below the kneecap is technically a ligament because it goes from bone to bone but functions as a tendon that helps you straighten your knee.

Most knee injuries are near the surface of the knee and occur in these four ligaments and the large tendon surrounding your kneecap. Fortunately, they can easily be treated with manual therapy.

 

 

Pain Deep in the Knee

When the injury is deep inside the knee, it could be this strained ligament in the middle of the knee on the left or a broken meniscus, often referred to as a torn cartilage, on the right. With these more serious injuries, healing can take a long time or require surgery.

The cases I see involve the superficial ligaments and different parts of the tendon at the front of the knee. The treatment is straightforward and very effective. Clients are also given a series of exercises to speed up the healing process.

 

The most important thing is to figure out exactly what’s injured, so you don’t waste your time and money. If you have pain in your knee, I can probably help you; if I can’t, I’ll refer you to someone who can.