KNEE PAIN

August 04, 2016

Knee pain is one of the major problems affecting the day to day life activities of an individual. The simplest daily activities including walking, sitting, climbing stairs, cycling, becomes difficult and painful. Some of the major joint problems causing knee pain are osteoarthritis of knee, rheumatoid arthritis, ligaments or meniscal injuries, muscle weakness.

The problem commonly occurs after the age of 30, but is seen more commonly in elderly people. With age the joint structures begin to get degenerated. The knee joint consisting of joint capsules, articular cartilages, meniscus, ligaments and muscles supporting the joint go through several changes. The degenerative changes in the knee joint causes the surrounding joint structures especially the muscles to become weak, leading to inability to perform simple day to day life activities. The spaces between the two bones of the knee joint decreases causing friction in the joint. The articular cartilages covering the bones forming the joint begins to degenerate, there is a focal loss, and thinning due to wear and tear.

The knee pain can also occur in early stages of life due to obesity, due to heavy load bearing on both the legs. The heavy weight transferred to the knee joint from the upper body through pelvis causes the joints to bear intolerable load, which leads to damage to the knee joint.

The damage to any of the body part is also associated with its use. The types of activities which we perform in our daily life affects the body and its functions. Certain vocational factors causes a lot of harmful effects on the knee joint due to its over use or repetitive trauma to the joint structures. Example can be given of football players who are using their foot repeatedly to kick the ball, but the force required to kick the ball and the intensity of the kick plays a major role in motions at knee, Causing repetitive injury to the knee joint, which go unnoticed in the beginning but inside the joint there are several structural changes that finally leads to symptoms of pain and swelling in later stages.

Any injury due to fall or a direct hit may cause the changes in the joint structures to begin gradually leading to occurrence of osteoarthritis of the knee joint. A person sitting in an office for hours, may also complain of pain in knee, this is due to his prolonged sitting habit. This leads to formation of contractures in the knee joint and the muscles and the tendons become stiff and painful causing restricted range of motion of the joint and eventually pain. Smoking is one of the reasons for an increased degeneration of the joint structures. As smoking deter the cell production in cartilage leading to a cartilage loss inside the joint, it raises the toxin levels in the blood again causing damage to the cartilage and it increases the level of carbon monoxide in the blood leading to impaired cartilage repair.

Diabetes is also a reason which affects the normal knee functioning and causing damage to the joint, type II diabetes causes weight gain on a large scale, eventually leading to excessive load on the lower extremity, particularly knee joint. The extreme amounts of insulin secreted from the pancreas leads to weight gain and reduced ability to cut fat. It becomes a necessity to cure the problem and take appropriate measures to avoid the condition of pain in knees.

Bring a change in your lifestyle, add healthy activities, like morning walk, balanced diet, add protein, non-starchy vegetables, and whole-grain carbohydrates in your diet. Engage yourself in a 30 minute of physical activity every day or a workout to maintain your body weight. Avoid smoking not only for reducing knee pain but also to lead a healthy and disease free life. To recover from joint damage, go for physiotherapeutic exercises like knee isometric exercises without adding any additional resistance in the beginning and later on adding resistance in the form of weight cuffs or therabands. Analgesics give you an instant pain relief for some time but does not help in curing the condition and repair of the damaged joint structures. Therefore it is better to make a little effort and try to go on a healthy path with the awareness of importance of having pain free knees. Reducing the pain and adding strength to your muscles surrounding the knees will eventually improve the daily activities. For office workers having a hectic 9-5 schedule need to bring a change in their habit and try to take small breaks in between work. Get up and stretch a little, walk a few steps and change your position for a while. This prevents a fixed knee joint positioning causing severe knee pain. These are some of the most common causes of knee pain, try to lead a healthy and pain free life by adding just a few simple habits in your lifestyle. Try and improve your health on your own, take an initiative to bring a healthy change in your life, because you are more productive when you are pain free.

Take Care.

Jasrah.