Health blog Category: Joint Pain
The Impact of Knee Pain
Any kind of knee pain or stiffness makes simple daily activities such as walking, going up or down the stairs, squatting, and standing up from a chair, difficult.
The number one complaint from someone experiencing any kind of knee problem is pain under or around the knee cap. This type of pain can greatly limit functional mobility.
Some people also experience stiffness in and around the knee making it difficult to move the joint.
Hip, Knee, and Ankle Joints Are All Affecting Us
The knee joint is the second most complicated joint in our body and has to move in many directions. The knee and hip work in tandem allowing us to walk, run, squat and kneel. When either our hip, knee or ankle have problems moving, the other joints can be strained causing pain. Therefore, even if we have pain in your knees, it could be a problem stemming from your hip or ankle.
Most problems in the knee or hip come from either too little activity or too much activity.
Our Pain Might Be From Tendonitis or Bursitis
We will experience some episode of pain at one point or another during our life. It’s common for a quick scan of the internet or visit to a doctor to reveal a vague diagnosis of tendonitis or bursitis as the primary cause of that pain. While these works may or may not reflect the correct cause of the painful symptoms, how many of us actually know what these terms mean?
Furthermore, and more importantly, do we understand what causes tendonitis and bursitis, how they are treated and how to prevent them?
Here’s Why Our Hip Hurts
Hip problems can make our daily activities such as walking, difficult and painful. The most common causes of hip pain are due to wear and tear, and overuse. This means that most hip problems are the result of repetitive movements we do on a daily basis. Because this joint is necessary for weight bearing activities like standing, walking and running, it can be a source of pain among all ages – not just the older population.
Read full blogThis is Why you are Having Joint Pain
Do you find your joints aching for seemingly no apparent reason? Even small aches and pains are your body’s way of telling you something is not working correctly and this should not be ignored. According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study, 30% of the people surveyed reported some form of joint pain within a 30-day period. The greatest number of respondents had knee joint pain, followed by shoulder, finger and then hip joint pain.
Read full blogRelieving Joint Stiffness
Joint stiffness may be just a nuisance at first, but if left untreated it can begin to affect your daily activities such as reaching up into the cabinets or squatting down to pick up something off the floor. The scary thing is it can creep up on you slowly and you don’t even realize you are now using your left arm to do tasks that you’ve used your right arm for your entire life or you are asking your kids to pick up the grocery bag from the ground because its too hard to squat down.
Read full blogYour Knee and Arthritis
Arthritis is a degenerative joint condition that occurs overtime. Our joints wear down over our lifetime, and the cartilage or cushioning layer on our bones disappears. When this layer is gone your bones begin to rub other bones. What you might not realize is that knee arthritis specifically, impacts every age group.
Knee Arthritis Symptoms:
- Pain and swelling inside the joint
- Stiffness not only in the joint but also in the surrounding muscles
- Loss of range of motion in your knees
- Bending and extending your knees becomes difficult
- Grinding and popping in your knee joint.
Six Tips For Relieving Knee Pain
If you are dealing with recent or even chronic knee pain, here are six tips to help relieve that discomfort. Physical therapists at Loudoun Sports Therapy Center see lots of patients dealing with this. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), one in two people may develop painful knee osteoarthritis by the time they are 85-years-old. In addition, if you struggle with your weight, research shows that two in three people may develop painful knee arthritis in their lifetime.
Read full blogHow Much “Wiggle” is in Your Joints?
Joint mobility is the amount of movement that occurs within a single joint. This is not just how high you can raise your arm or how far you can bend your knee, it also is how much or how little “wiggle” there is within a joint. This “wiggle” is known as mild, moderate, or severe, hypermobility (excessive movement) or hypomobility (limitation of movement, stiffness).
How does having too little joint mobility (hypomobility, or stiffness) affect someone?
One of the Most Stable Joints in the Body…
You guessed it, the hip joint! However, that does not keep this joint and region of the body from becoming unstable, developing issues, and producing discomfort.
Unstable hip joints can lead to discomfort and weakness in the hip region and creates difficulties:
- sleeping or lying in certain positions
- standing, walking, running, and climbing stairs
- standing up from a seated position
- balancing
- bending your leg in towards your chest (such as when dressing, cutting your toe nails, or washing/drying your feet)
There are multiple structures in and around the hip joint that can produce pain in this area of the body:
- Labrum
- The ring of cartilage around the rim of the socket of the hip joint.