Knee Pain
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Pain on your knees can occur due to many reasons, some of which could be stemming from your spinal cord.
Here are some of the common symptoms, causes and available chiropractic treatments.
Arthritis
Common symptoms include front knee pain, pain that may worsen with movement due to excessive local swelling and stiffness.
Causes: Inflammation of the knee joints may be due to autoimmune disease, some severe trauma or recurrent micro-traumas, joint wear, bacterial or virus infection, and crystal deposition. When the cartilage presents irreversible damage, the patient gets the diagnosis of chronic arthritis.
Arthrosis
Symptoms of the disease begin with tiredness and inflammation in the knees, severe pain during physical activities such as climbing or descending stairs, and playing sports with impact. Swelling is the second symptom known by the inflammatory process of the membrane that covers the knee joint — advancing to a progressive loss of movement, preventing the patient from walking, maybe yet another sign that there is a deformity of the lower limb, thus characterizing the third symptom.
Causes: Joint wear can result in consequent arthrosis since the cartilaginous tissue that protects and surrounds the knee cartilage is damaged. Playing sports that require a lot of joints, being overweight, intense or repetitive trauma, heredity, and smoking may be the main factors causing knee arthrosis.
Bursitis
A person with bursitis experiences a lot of joint discomforts, and around the knee joint, stiffness and pain while moving the affected joint, swelling and redness may also appear when the bursa region is inflamed.
Causes: Knee bursitis appears due to different factors, such as bacterial bursa infection; the excessive use of frictional forces that may occur during some physical activity; injuries; falls or blows to the knee; diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis or gout; and obesity. Another common cause may be time spent on the knees on hard and extended surfaces, also vigorous sports.
Tendinitis
Knee tendonitis, also known as patellar tendonitis or jumping knee, is an inflammation of the patella tendon on the knee usually diagnosed by anamnesis, upon patient’s report of local pain or tenderness, assessing the degree of inflammation according to a degree of discomfort when walking or practicing physical activity.
Causes: Knee tendonitis may occur due to different factors; the most frequent being the inappropriate use of shoes, the wrong execution of physical exercises, knee anatomical defects that cause undue weight distribution on the knees (varus knee, valgus knee or limb dysmetria), overweight, obesity, and muscle imbalances. The age and consequent alteration of fibers, especially in women who have a more fragile constitution, can lead to injuries on the sinews as well.
Baker’s Cyst
Although it can often be asymptomatic, baker’s cyst accrues swelling behind the knee, knee pain, muscle stiffness, with a marked increase after physical activity or after long-standing in the same position.
Causes: Baker’s cyst is a swelling in the back of the knee. This swelling may occur due to an increase in the amount of synovial fluid that accumulates in the back of the knee in a place called the popliteal bursa so that it can form a cyst, with the leading cause of this cyst formation, the inflammation of the knee joint, arthritis, and damage and wear of the cartilage.
Chondromalacia
The main symptom of patellar chondromalacia is a frequent pain in the upfront of the knee that can be aggravated by some movements, such as going up and downstairs, kneeling, crouching, jumping, sitting with the knee bent or sitting for long periods.
Causes: Patellar chondromalacia may have different levels, and is more common in women, and women with valgus knees. Repetitive knee joint stress, lack of muscle tone in the muscles of the hips, traumas, fractures, or dislocations, lack of stretching exercises, improperly exercises, overweight or obesity, arthrosis and constant use of heels are the main reasons for the appearance of chondromalacia.
Gout
Symptoms of gout in the knees usually appear suddenly and may last between 12 to 24 hours. The most common reports are severe pain, especially at night, discomfort in the affected joint, difficulty in walking, redness, and inflammation, burning, swelling, lump formation, fever, discomfort, and joint stiffness.
Causes: The presence of higher than normal levels of uric acid in the bloodstream, when the body produces too much uric acid or has difficulty in eliminating the uric acid that produces, may reflect in accumulative fluids around the joints (synovial fluid) forming the crystals of uric acid; these crystals cause swelling and inflammation in the joints, gout.
Treatments
Both joint wear, arthritis, and knee arthrosis can benefit from chiropractic care, increased joint mobility, range of motion, muscle balance of adjacent areas, releasing tendons, decreasing inflammation, and reducing pain with the joint during treatment.
It can help a lot as a concurrent treatment with the others prescribed by the doctor or physiotherapist. An anti-inflammatory diet may also sound good and increase efficiency in the treatment.
Chiropractic can also help to reduce the potential for worsening of the condition, both for athletes and established illnesses, by correcting inflammation, poor posture, and muscle tension.