Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms with which patients turn to orthopedists and other specialists.Many people completely ignore the appearance of unpleasant sensations, considering them age-related and almost natural.But there are many causes of pain in the knee joint, as it has a complex structure and is affected by a number of external and internal damaging factors.Some illnesses are serious and require urgent treatment.
Who is more likely to injure their knee joints?
The knees are formed by several bones connected by muscles, ligaments and tendons.There are also 5 synovial bursae - cavities surrounded by membranes designed to protect the joint.Between the joints of the bones there are inter-articular cartilages - menisci, which help the free movement of the knee.Violation of even one area of the knee joint leads to the appearance of unpleasant symptoms.
Pain in the knee joint occurs especially often in people with flat feet.This is a pathology of the foot that impairs the shock-absorbing abilities of the limbs.With age, the increased load on the joints leads to their destruction and the development of inflammatory phenomena - a pain syndrome appears.Different types of foot and lower leg deformities have similar consequences.
There are a number of factors under the influence of which knee pain occurs more often:
- overweight;
- Passive lifestyle;
- High sports loads;
- diabetes mellitus;
- Vascular diseases;
- old age;
- Knee surgeries and injuries;
- Work with increased load on the legs.
The causes and treatment of knee pain vary widely, as does the severity of the sensation.If your knee hurts a lot, the cause may be an injury or an advanced stage of arthrosis, a severe inflammatory process.Sometimes the symptom becomes permanent, present even at rest, accompanied by swelling, redness of the skin and crunching.All these signs should warn a person and force him to visit a doctor.
Pain due to bruises in the knee
Among the traumatic causes of joint dysfunction, the most common are bruises.Why does my knee hurt if the symptoms were preceded by only a slight bruise?Even a slight injury is accompanied by hemorrhage in the soft periarticular tissues and their swelling.As a result, the nerve roots suffer and pain occurs.
In more serious cases, the pain in the knee increases when bending and extending the leg, and a person stops moving due to sharp sensations in the joint.On palpation, you can notice swelling of the leg;it is hot to the touch.How to treat such an injury?You need to contact a traumatologist, take an X-ray, follow all recommendations and ensure rest for your leg.
Often the cause of pain in the knee joint after a banal bruise is traumatic hemarthrosis.This is an effusion of blood into the joint cavity, causing edema and swelling of the synovial membranes.As a result, the joint fills with blood and inflammation begins.Without proper treatment, the injury can lead to the development of chronic arthrosis even at an early age.
Other types of knee injuries
If your leg hurts in the knee and an injury has contributed to these sensations, the reasons may lie in various damage to the components of the joint.Here are the main ones:
- Meniscopathy.Represents a flattening or tear of the meniscus.The injury is particularly common in professional athletes, people involved in extreme sports, and also in domestic injuries.A person feels that the knee is sharply painful, the nature of the sensations is piercing, like a dagger, the joint loses mobility for a while.
- Damage to links.Tearing (spraining) of the ligaments occurs when the leg is twisted, after a jump, or when the limb is stretched in an unnatural position.Sharp pain appears, the leg swells, the position of the joint changes, it loosens.
- Torn cruciate ligaments.Because these ligaments are located inside the joint, injury often results in bleeding into the knee cavity.Only a puncture will help pump the blood and make an accurate diagnosis.
Pain in the knee joint sometimes accompanies chronic dislocations of the patella.Without treatment of the acute trauma, in many patients the dislocation becomes chronic and causes regular recurrences.In children, this pathology causes an X-shaped curvature of the leg and leads to serious damage to its function.Sometimes the pathology affects the knees of both legs.
Inflammatory diseases of the knees
Often, standard treatment for knee pain is ineffective.In this case, the joint itself may not be affected, but the surrounding soft tissues.Thus, tendinitis or inflammation of the tendon can be caused by increased stress on the limb, past injuries to the feet, allergies, drug reactions, etc.In this disease, the knee joint hurts, as a rule, during the day or evening;the pain subsides at night.In the acute stage, joint mobility is severely limited, the syndrome is persistent and cannot be treated with ointments and creams.Sharp sensations are also observed when palpating the lateral part of the knee.
If your knees hurt regularly, the symptom worsens after hypothermia, the cause may be synovitis - inflammation of the synovial membranes.An inflammatory exudate appears inside the joint, causing a bursting sensation and pain.The causes of the pathology are different:
- Autoimmune diseases;
- Metabolic diseases;
- Past traumas;
- Arthrosis.
Another "popular" disease that causes knee pain is bursitis.This happens when the bursa (joint capsule) becomes inflamed.In addition to the pain, there is redness, swelling and increased sensitivity of the patella area.If you do not clarify in time how to treat bursitis, it almost always becomes chronic.
Neoplasms in the area of the knee joint
Malignant tumors of this localization are rare;the pain syndrome is characteristic of them only at a very late stage.More often, pain in the knee joint is characteristic of benign formations:
- Baker's cyst.This tumor appears below the knee, on its back surface.In appearance, the skin over the cyst is normal, not inflamed;when it bends, there may be no swelling at all.In a standing position, a clearly defined, soft, elastic formation appears at the site of the cyst.Appears after unilateral knee injury or cartilage damage.Very often, the cyst accompanies chronic synovitis, arthrosis, rheumatoid arthritis.Large cysts cause not only pain in the knee, but also serious limitation of limb mobility.Due to compression of blood vessels and nerves, other symptoms include cold skin, pallor, goosebumps and numbness.
- Meniscus cyst.It occurs in the outer or inner meniscus when a cavity with fluid is located inside the cartilage.In this case, the knees hurt after heavy loads or at the end of the day.Large cysts can be noticeable in the lateral part of the joint, small ones are visible only with ultrasound or X-ray.
A rare pathology is Hoffa's disease - transformation of the adipose tissue of the joint, which becomes fibrous and causes joint dysfunction.Against the background of this pathology, arthrosis often develops, which provokes pain in the knee joint.Causes: hormonal imbalance, menopause in women.
Infectious joint pathologies
Against the background of the infection, the knee joint hurts sharply, sharply, providing rest does not relieve the condition.Even urogenital and intestinal infections can cause musculoskeletal complications leading to reactive arthritis.Bacteria (salmonella, chlamydia, gonococci and others) penetrate into the cavity of the bone joint with the blood stream, settle on the tissues and cause inflammation.Usually the tendons also become inflamed, making the knee swollen and hot to the touch.
Tuberculosis is a serious disease.Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies in bone tissue, causing bone melting and necrosis of cartilage and soft tissue.Without emergency treatment, the knee joints hurt and collapse, and the process covers larger and larger areas.As a result, fistulas appear - cavities with pus, which can spill out and cause damage to the whole body.
Acute, urgent disease is osteomyelitis of bones.What to do if your knees hurt and the process is accompanied by weakness, muscle pain and temperature up to 40 degrees?If the pain in the knee is dull, bursting, and the tissues themselves are swollen, red and blue, you should urgently call an ambulance and go to emergency surgery.Otherwise, you may lose your leg or die.
Knee pain - causes of a degenerative nature
After the age of 50, a huge number of people have knee pain.The prerequisites are the aging of the body, wear and tear of the joint apparatus and the development of the most common pathology - osteoarthritis (gonarthrosis).It leads to thinning and destruction of cartilage with a change in the shape of the heads of the bones.Most often, in the early stage of the pathology, the knee hurts on one side;after several years the lesion becomes bilateral.In the morning, the stiffness in my leg bothers me, but it quickly disappears.Increased sensations are possible after physical work, intense sports or prolonged walking.
In an advanced stage, the joint tissues collapse and osteophytes grow on the sides of the joint gap.These are spikes of bone tissue, which in severe cases break and cause excruciating pain.There are a number of other degenerative pathologies whose symptoms will be similar to gonarthrosis:
- Osteochondropathy.Affects the articular surface of the bone associated with injury and sports.It can develop in teenagers for no apparent reason.
- Arthritis.It can be rheumatoid, psoriatic, gouty and provoke chronic inflammation and destruction of the joints.
- Chondromatosis.The etiology is unclear.The disease causes the appearance of nodules on the synovial membranes, which limit the movement of the knee and cause pain.
Menopausal women often have knee pain due to osteoporosis - thinning of the bones, increasing their fragility.The disease is accompanied by leg cramps, pain in the spine and periodic fractures.
Other causes of knee pain
When your knees hurt, the etiology of the sensation may also lie in damage to the peripheral nervous system.Thus, neuropathy of the sciatic nerve against the background of damage to the lumbar vertebrae leads to a number of symptoms.A person's knees hurt, the thigh area, the joints of the limbs weaken, the sensitivity of the skin is impaired.Leg reflexes also change.
Sometimes the entire knee joint hurts due to vascular disorders.Only in adolescence, you should not worry too much - due to the rapid growth of the body, the vessels do not have time to supply the bones with blood.With age, the state of the joint normalizes - usually by the age of 18-20, the pain stops completely.
In old age, with atherosclerosis, the knees also often hurt, what should I do in this case?Without normalizing fat metabolism, plaque will continue to deposit inside the arteries.The vessels become blocked and stop supplying the joint completely.Arthrosis develops in it, and the pain becomes chronic.Unpleasant sensations in the knee area can also be caused by varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and vascular thrombosis.
How to make a diagnosis?
People have knee pain quite often;how to treat the condition can only be determined after an examination.Both acute and unpleasant pain in the knee are characteristic of many pathologies, some of which are very dangerous.For diagnosis, you should contact a surgeon, orthopedist, neurologist, rheumatologist or traumatologist.He will conduct a study, establish the exact symptoms of the disease and identify accompanying signs.In addition, at the initial appointment, the doctor will conduct a series of tests and physical examinations to clarify the nature of the problem.
What to do when your knees hurt, what instrumental methods will help identify the causes?It is usually prescribed:
- ultrasound;
- MRI;
- CT;
- Radiography.
The choice of the exact technique should be left to the physician.In this way, ultrasound reflects well the changes in the leg due to arthrosis and damage to the menisci.X-rays perfectly show bone deformities and the presence of osteophytes.MRI and CT give complete information;they are indispensable in complex diseases.In addition, the doctor will prescribe blood tests to rule out inflammation and rheumatism, and if necessary, a biopsy of the joint will be performed.In osteoporosis, densitometry is necessary - it will show the patient's bone density.
Treatment of knee pain
If the pathology has a traumatic nature, the treatment is carried out by traumatologists, sometimes it is carried out in a hospital.Light bruising disappears on its own within a few days;for quick resolution of the hematoma, it is recommended to apply absorbent ointments to the knee.If pain occurs, ointments with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory components should be rubbed.
How to treat when the knee hurts due to its inflammatory lesion?In the acute stage of bursitis, synovitis, arthritis, the affected leg requires rest;ice packs can be applied for 15 minutes during the first 3 days.Severe pain is relieved by injections of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and injections of anesthetics directly into the joint.To prevent chronic inflammation in the joint after the pain subsides, physical therapy and exercise therapy are prescribed.
When a person has knee pain due to gonarthrosis, what should he do in this case?The main drugs for treatment are chondroprotectors and hyaluronic acid injections.These drugs are designed to restore the nutrition of the articular cartilage, as a result of which it stops deteriorating.Also, the following should be prescribed for knee rehabilitation:
- Vascular drugs;
- Physiotherapy;
- gymnastics;
- Massage;
- Vitamin complexes.
Infectious diseases of the joints are an indication for introducing antibiotics into the joint cavities or taking drugs by mouth.In some cases, it is necessary to perform an operation to remove tissue affected by pus.Advanced forms of arthrosis with proliferation of osteophytes are also treated with surgical intervention.Sometimes only replacing the joint with a prosthesis allows a person to retain the ability to walk normally.