Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms for which patients refer to orthopedists and other specialists.Many people completely ignore the occurrence of unpleasant sensations, considering them age-related and almost natural.But there are many causes of pain in the knee joint, because it has a complex structure and is affected by a number of external and internal damaging factors.Some diseases are serious and require urgent treatment.
Who is more likely to injure the knee joints?
Knees are made up of 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.Disruption of even one area of the knee joint causes unpleasant symptoms.
Knee joint pain is especially common in people with flat feet.This is a foot pathology that disrupts the shock absorption capabilities of the limbs.With age, the increased load on the joints leads to their destruction and the development of inflammatory phenomena - pain syndrome appears.Different types of foot and lower leg deformities have similar results.
There are a number of factors under the influence of which knee pain appears more often:
- overweight;
- passive lifestyle;
- high sports load;
- diabetes mellitus;
- vascular diseases;
- old age
- knee operations and injuries;
- Work with increased load on the legs.
The causes and treatments for knee pain vary widely, as does the severity of the sensitivity.If your knee hurts a lot, the reason may be an injury or an advanced stage of arthrosis, a severe inflammatory process.Sometimes the symptom becomes permanent, appearing even at rest, accompanied by swelling, redness of the skin and cramping.All these signs should alert a person and make him go to the doctor.
Pain in the knee due to bruises
Among the traumatic causes of joint dysfunction, the most common are bruises.Why does my knee hurt if only a small bruise preceded the symptoms?Even a light injury is accompanied by bleeding in the soft periarticular tissues and their swelling.As a result, nerve roots suffer and pain appears.
In more severe cases, the knee pain worsens when bending and extending the leg, and the person stops moving due to sharp sensations in the joint.By palpation, you can notice leg swelling;It is hot to the touch.How to treat such an injury?You should consult a traumatologist, take an X-ray, follow all recommendations and rest your leg.
Traumatic hemarthrosis is often the cause of pain in the knee joint after a trivial bruise.This is blood spilling into the joint cavity, which causes swelling and swelling of the synovial membranes.As a result, the joint is filled with blood and inflammation begins.Without proper treatment, the injury can lead to the development of chronic arthrosis even at a young age.
Other types of knee injuries
If your leg hurts in the knee area and an injury has contributed to these sensations, the cause may be various injuries to the components of the joint.Here's the gist:
- Meniscopathy.represents a flattening or tear of the meniscus.The injury is especially common among professional athletes, people engaged in extreme sports, and also in household injuries.A person feels that the knee is sharply painful, the nature of the sensations is piercing, similar to a dagger, the joint loses mobility for some time.
- ligament damage.Ligaments are torn (strained) when the leg is twisted, after a jump or when the limb is extended in an unnatural position.There is a sharp pain, swelling of the leg, the position of the joint changes, it becomes loose.
- Rupture of the cruciate ligament.Since these ligaments are located inside the joint, injury often causes bleeding into the knee.Only a puncture can help pump blood and make an accurate diagnosis.
Aching pain in the knee joint sometimes accompanies chronic dislocation of the patella.Without treatment of the acute injury, in some patients the dislocation becomes chronic and causes regular recurrences.In children, this pathology causes an X-shaped curvature of the leg and causes a serious violation of its function.Sometimes the pathology affects the knees of both legs.
Inflammatory diseases of the knee
Often, standard treatment for knee pain is ineffective.In this case, not the joint itself, but the surrounding soft tissue may be affected.Thus, tendonitis or inflammation of the tendon can be caused by increased load on the limb, past injuries to the foot, allergies, reactions to medications, etc.With this disease, the knee joint hurts, usually during the day or in the evening;The pain disappears at night.In the acute stage, the mobility of the joints is severely limited, the syndrome is persistent and cannot be treated with ointments and creams.Sharp sensations are observed during palpation of the lateral part of the knee.
If your knees hurt regularly, the symptom will worsen after hypothermia, the cause may be synovitis - inflammation of the synovial membranes.An inflammatory exudate appears inside the joint, causing swelling and pain.The causes of pathology are diverse:
- autoimmune diseases;
- metabolic diseases;
- past injuries;
- arthrosis.
Another "popular" disease that causes knee pain is bursitis.This happens when the bursa (joint capsule) becomes inflamed.In addition to pain, there is redness, swelling and increased sensitivity of the patella area.If you do not treat bursitis in time, it almost always becomes chronic.
Neoplasms of the knee joint area
Malignancy of this location is rare;Pain syndrome is typical for them only in the late stage.More often, aching pain in the knee joint is characteristic of benign formations:
- Baker's cyst.This tumor appears under the knee, on its back surface.Externally, the skin on the cyst is normal, not inflamed;When bent, there may be no swelling at all.In a standing position, a clearly defined, soft, elastic formation appears at the site of the cyst.It occurs after unilateral knee injury or cartilage damage.Very often cyst is accompanied by chronic synovitis, arthrosis, rheumatoid arthritis.Large cysts cause not only pain in the knee area, but also serious limitation of limb mobility.Other symptoms include cold skin, paleness, goosebumps, and numbness due to compression of blood vessels and nerves.
- Meniscus cyst.Occurs in the outer or inner meniscus when a fluid cavity is localized inside the cartilage.In this case, the knees hurt after high loads or at the end of the day.Large cysts are noticeable on the lateral part of the joint, and small ones can only be seen by ultrasound or X-ray.
Hoffa's disease is a rare pathology - a transformation of the fatty tissue of the joint, which becomes fibrous and causes a violation of joint function.Against the background of this pathology, arthrosis often develops, which causes pain in the knee joint.Causes: hormonal imbalance, menopause in women.
Infectious pathologies of the joints
Against the background of infection, the knee joint hurts sharply, sharply, providing rest does not relieve the condition.Even urogenital and intestinal infections can cause complications on the musculoskeletal system, leading to reactive arthritis.Bacteria (salmonella, chlamydia, gonococci and others) enter the bone joint cavity with the blood flow, stay on the tissues and cause inflammation.The tendons are usually inflamed, causing the knee to feel swollen and hot to the touch.
Tuberculosis is a serious disease.Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies in bone tissue, causing bone loss and necrosis of cartilage and soft tissues.Without immediate help, the knee joints ache and disintegrate, and the process covers larger and larger areas.As a result, fistulas appear - purulent cavities that can come out and harm the whole body.
Bone osteomyelitis is an acute, urgent disease.What to do if your knees hurt and the process is accompanied by weakness, muscle pain and fever up to 40 degrees?If the knee pain is dull, throbbing, and the tissues themselves are swollen, red, and blue, you should immediately call an ambulance and seek immediate surgery.Otherwise, you may lose your leg or die.
Knee pain - causes of degenerative nature
After 50, many people have knee pain.A prerequisite is the aging of the body, wear and tear of the joint apparatus and the development of the most common pathology - osteoarthritis (gonarthrosis).This leads to thinning and destruction of the cartilage by changing the shape of the bone heads.Most often, at the initial stage of the pathology, knee pain on one side;After a few years, the damage becomes bilateral.In the morning, I feel stiff in my legs, but it disappears quickly.Increased sensitivity is possible after physical work, intense sports or long walks.
In advanced stages, joint tissues break down and osteophytes grow on the sides of the joint.These are vertebrae made of bony 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 trauma and sports.It can develop in adolescents for no apparent reason.
- Arthritis.It can be rheumatoid, psoriatic, gouty and cause chronic inflammation and joint destruction.
- Chondromatosis.The etiology is unclear.The disease causes nodules to form on the synovial membranes, which limit the movement of the knee and cause pain.
During menopause, women often have knee pain due to osteoporosis - thinning of bones, increasing their fragility.The disease is accompanied by leg cramps, spine pain and periodic fractures.
Other causes of knee pain
When your knees hurt, the etiology of the sensitivity may also be damage to the peripheral nervous system.Thus, neuropathy of the sciatic nerve on the background of damage to the lumbar spine causes a number of symptoms.A person's knees hurt, the thigh area hurts, the joints of the limbs become weak, and the sensitivity of the skin is reduced.Leg reflexes also change.
Sometimes the whole knee joint hurts because of vascular disorders.You should not worry too much only in adolescence - due to the rapid growth of the body, the blood vessels do not have time to supply blood to the bones.With age, the condition of the joint normalizes - usually at the age of 18-20, the pain stops completely.
In old age, during atherosclerosis, my knees often hurt, what should we do in this case?Without normalizing fat metabolism, plaque will continue to deposit inside the arteries.The vessels close 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 diagnose?
People have knee pain quite often;How to treat the condition can be determined only after examination.Both sharp and aching pain in the knee area is characteristic of many pathologies, some of them are very dangerous.To determine the diagnosis, you should consult a surgeon, orthopedist, neurologist, rheumatologist or traumatologist.He will conduct a survey, find out the exact symptoms of the disease and reveal accompanying signs.Also, during the initial visit, the doctor will perform a series of tests and physical examinations to determine the nature of the problem.
What should you do when your knees hurt, what instrumental methods will help you identify the causes?Usually prescribed:
- ultrasound;
- MRI;
- CT;
- Radiography.
The choice of the exact technique should be left to the doctor.Thus, ultrasound can well reflect changes in the foot due to arthrosis and meniscus damage.X-ray perfectly shows the deformation of the bone and the presence of osteophytes.MRI and CT provide complete information;They are indispensable for complex diseases.In addition, the doctor will prescribe a blood test to rule out inflammation and rheumatism, and if necessary, a joint biopsy will be performed.Densitometry is needed for osteoporosis - it shows the patient's bone density.
Treatment of knee pain
If the pathology is of a traumatic nature, the treatment is carried out by traumatologists, and sometimes in the hospital.Light bruises disappear on their own in a few days;To quickly resolve the hematoma, it is advisable to apply ointments to the knee.If pain appears, ointments with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory components should be rubbed.
How to treat when the knee hurts due to its inflammatory damage?In the acute stage of bursitis, synovitis, arthritis, the affected leg needs rest;Ice compresses can be applied to it for 15 minutes for the first 3 days.Severe pain is relieved by injections of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and injection of anesthetics directly into the joint.After pain relief, physical therapy and exercise therapy are prescribed to prevent chronic inflammation in the joint.
When a person has knee pain due to gonarthrosis, what should be done in this case?The main treatments are chondroprotectors and hyaluronic acid injections.These drugs are aimed at restoring the nutrition of the joint cartilage, as a result of which it stops deteriorating.Also, the following should be prescribed for knee rehabilitation:
- Vascular medications;
- physiotherapy;
- gymnastics;
- massage
- Vitamin complexes.
Infectious diseases of the joints are an indication for injecting antibiotics into the joint cavity or taking drugs orally.In some cases, surgery to remove the tissue affected by pus is necessary.Advanced forms of arthrosis with the proliferation of osteophytes are also treated with surgical intervention.Sometimes only joint replacement with a prosthesis allows a person to maintain normal walking ability.