By: Alyssa Burke, PTA
Are you feeling weak in the knees, but not in a good way? There are many different factors that can cause people to experience knee pain. We often don’t think about how much we move our knee joints in a day but when we are experiencing knee pain we become more aware of how much we are moving. Some of the common knee problems that people experience are:
- Osteoarthritis
- Tendinitis
- Ligaments sprains and tears
Unfortunately, we cannot control if we will develop osteoarthritis in our lifetime. Osteoarthritis occurs within the joint. It causes the cartilage surrounding our bones to deteriorate, which can lead to pain when walking or bending your knee and often a popping or grinding feeling inside your knee joint when you bend and straighten your knee.
Tendinitis is associated with overuse. This overuse causes the tendons connecting the muscles to our bones surrounding the knee joint to become painful and inflamed. Tendinitis could cause you to have swelling, tenderness, and pain when you bend and straighten your knee.
Within our knee joint, we have four ligaments that we rely on to keep our knee stable. A ligament sprain could occur after a fall, after twisting your knee, or if you were hit in the knee, something that’s common in sports. If one or more of these four ligaments becomes injured or tears completely, we often see a decrease in knee stability. Depending on the severity of the sprain, it is common to see bruising, an increase in swelling and pain. All of these make it difficult to bend your knee or even walk.
While it’s easy to brush of a little bit of discomfort, it is important not to ignore the symptoms if you are experiencing knee problems. If left untreated, a minor injury could become a major injury and lead to increased pain, loss of range of motion or the ability to bend and straighten your knee. If symptoms worsen, you may find it difficult to walk, stand up out of your chair or bend your knee just to put on your shoes and socks.
There are some knee problems that are major and may require surgery. However, for most knee issues such as general pain, instability or weakness, physical therapy is a great option to help resolve your knee problems. With the help of physical therapy interventions, strengthening and improving body mechanics and movement patterns, you can regain your range of motion, reduce the stress on your joint to prevent overuse or adding additional stress to your muscles, joints, and ligaments and get you back to a pain-free lifestyle. Call our office TODAY at 703-450-4300 and CLICK HERE for more on how physical therapy can help you.
