Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms for which patients consult orthopedists and other specialists.Many people completely ignore the appearance of unpleasant feelings, considering it age-related and almost natural.However, pain in the knee joint has many causes, because it has a complex structure and is affected by a number of external and internal damaging factors.Some diseases are serious and require immediate 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 - membrane-lined spaces designed to protect the joint.Between the joints of the bones there are inter-articular cartilages - menisci - which help the knee to move freely.Disruption of even one area of the knee joint causes the appearance of unpleasant symptoms.
Pain in the knee joint occurs especially in people with flat feet.This is a foot pathology that impairs the ability of the limbs to absorb shock.With age, increased loads on the joints lead to their destruction and the development of inflammatory phenomena - pain syndrome appears.Different deformities of the foot and lower leg have similar results.
There are a number of factors that make knee pain more common:
- Overweight;
- passive lifestyle;
- High sports loads;
- Diabetes mellitus;
- Vascular diseases;
- Old age;
- Knee operations and injuries;
- Work with an 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 is permanent, even at rest, accompanied by swelling, redness and crusting of the skin.All these signs should alert a person and make him go to the doctor.
Pain due to bruises on the knee
Among the traumatic causes of joint dysfunction, bruises are the most common.Why does my knee hurt if the symptoms were only preceded by a small bruise?Even a mild injury is accompanied by bleeding into the soft periarticular tissues and their swelling.As a result, nerve roots suffer and pain appears.
In more serious cases, pain in the knee intensifies when bending and extending the leg, and the person stops moving due to sharp sensations in the joint.During palpation, you can see swelling of the leg;warm to the touch.How to treat such an injury?You need to contact a traumatologist, take an X-ray, follow all the recommendations and rest your leg.
Often, the cause of pain in the knee joint after a banal bruise is traumatic hemarthrosis.This is the flow of blood into the joint cavity, which causes edema and swelling of the synovial membranes.As a result, the joint is filled with blood and inflammation begins.In the absence of 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 and an injury causes these feelings, the reasons may be various injuries to the components of the joint.The main ones are:
- Meniscopathy.Represents a flattening or tear of the meniscus.The injury is especially common in professional athletes, people involved in extreme sports, as well as household injuries.A person feels sharp pain in the knee, the nature of the sensations is piercing, like a dagger, the joint loses its mobility for a while.
- Ligament damage.Tearing (spraining) of the ligaments occurs when the leg is twisted, after a jump or when the limb is extended in an unnatural position.A sharp pain appears, the leg swells, the position of the joint changes, it becomes loose.
- Cruciate ligament rupture.Because these ligaments are located inside the joint, the injury often causes bleeding into the knee cavity.Only a puncture will help to draw blood and make an accurate diagnosis.
Painful pain in the knee joint is sometimes accompanied by chronic dislocation of the patella.Without acute injury treatment, dislocations become chronic in a number of patients and cause regular recurrences.In children, this pathology causes an X-shaped curvature of the leg and seriously impairs 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, it may not be the joint itself that is affected, but the surrounding soft tissue.Thus, tendonitis or inflammation of the tendon, increased loads on the limb, past leg injuries, allergies, drug reactions, etc.With this disease, the knee joint, as a rule, hurts during the day or evening;pain decreases 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 side 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, which causes bursting and painful sensations.The causes of pathology are various:
- Autoimmune diseases;
- Metabolic diseases;
- Past traumas;
- Arthrosis.
Another "famous" disease that causes knee pain is bursitis.It occurs when the bursa (joint capsule) becomes inflamed.In addition to pain, there is redness, swelling, increased sensitivity of the patella area.If you do not clarify how to treat bursitis in time, it almost always becomes chronic.
Neoplasms of the knee joint
Malignant tumors of this location are rare;pain syndrome is characteristic of them only at a very late stage.More often, painful pain in the knee joint is characteristic of benign formations:
- Baker's cyst.This tumor occurs under the knee, on the back surface.In appearance, the skin on the cyst is normal, not inflamed;when bent, there may be no swelling.In a constant state, 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 is accompanied by chronic synovitis, arthrosis, rheumatoid arthritis.Large cysts cause not only pain in the knee, but also severe limitation of mobility of the extremities.Due to compression of blood vessels and nerves, other symptoms include cold skin, paleness, goosebumps, and numbness.
- Meniscus cyst.A cavity with fluid in the outer or inner meniscus appears when it is localized within the cartilage.In this case, the knees hurt after high loads or at the end of the day.Large cysts can be seen on the side of the joint, small ones can only be seen by ultrasound or X-ray.
A rare pathology is Hoffa's disease - transformation of the adipose tissue of the joint, becomes fibrous and causes dysfunction of the joint.Against the background of this pathology, arthrosis often develops, which causes pain in the knee joint.Reasons: hormonal imbalance, menopause in women.
Infectious joint pathologies
Against the background of infection, the knee joint hurts sharply, sharply, providing rest does not alleviate the situation.Even genitourinary and intestinal infections can cause complications in the musculoskeletal system, resulting in reactive arthritis.Bacteria (salmonella, chlamydia, gonococci, and others) penetrate the cavity of the bone joint through the bloodstream, settle in the tissues, and cause inflammation.Usually the tendons are also inflamed, causing the knee to swell and feel warm to the touch.
Tuberculosis is a serious disease.Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies in bone tissue, causing bone dissolution and necrosis of cartilage and soft tissues.Without immediate treatment, the knee joints ache and collapse, and the process covers more and more areas.As a result, fistulas appear - purulent cavities pour out and can harm the whole body.
An acute, urgent disease is bone osteomyelitis.What to do if your knees hurt and the process is accompanied by weakness, muscle pain and fever up to 40 degrees?When the pain in the knee is dull, exploding, and the tissues themselves are swollen, red and blue, you should urgently call an ambulance and go to an emergency operation.Otherwise, you may lose your leg or die.
Knee pain – causes of degenerative nature
After the age of 50, many people have knee pain.The initial conditions are the aging of the body, the wear of the joint apparatus and the development of the most common pathology - osteoarthritis (gonarthrosis).It leads to the thinning and destruction of cartilages by changing the shape of the heads of the bones.Most often, in the early stage of pathology, knee pain on one side;after a few years, the lesion becomes bilateral.The stiffness in my leg bothers me in the morning, but it goes away quickly.Increased sensations are possible after physical work, intense sports or a long walk.
In advanced stages, articular tissues collapse and osteophytes grow to the sides of the joint cavity.These are spines made of bone tissue that break off in severe cases and cause excruciating pain.There are a number of other degenerative pathologies, the symptoms of which are similar to gonarthrosis:
- Osteochondropathy.Affects the articular surface of bones associated with injuries and sports.It can develop in teenagers for no apparent reason.
- Arthritis.It can be rheumatoid, psoriatic, gouty and provokes chronic inflammation and destruction of joints.
- Chondromatosis.The etiology is not clear.The disease causes the appearance of nodules in 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, periodic fractures.
Other causes of knee pain
When your knees hurt, the etiology of the sensation may also be in the damage of the peripheral nervous system.Thus, against the background of damage to the spinal vertebrae, neuropathy of the sciatic nerve causes a number of symptoms.A person's knees hurt, the hip region hurts, the joints of the limbs weaken, and skin sensitivity is disturbed.Leg reflexes also change.
Sometimes, the entire knee joint hurts due to vascular disorders.You should not worry too much only during adolescence - due to the rapid growth of the body, the vessels do not have time to supply the bones with blood.With age, the condition of the joint normalizes - usually by the age of 18-20, the pain stops completely.
In old age, knees often hurt with atherosclerosis, what to do in this situation?Without normalizing fat metabolism, the plaque will continue to settle inside the arteries.The veins become blocked and stop supplying the joint completely.Then arthrosis develops and the pain becomes chronic.Unpleasant sensations in the knee area can also be caused by varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and vein thrombosis.
How to make a diagnosis?
Knee pain is quite common in humans;how to treat the condition can be determined only after examination.Both sharp and nagging pains 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 survey, learn the exact symptoms of the disease and determine the accompanying symptoms.Also, 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 determine the causes?It is usually defined as:
- Ultrasound;
- MRI;
- CT;
- Radiography.
The choice of the exact technique should be left to the doctor.Thus, ultrasound does a good job of reflecting changes in the leg due to arthrosis and meniscus damage.X-rays perfectly show bone deformations and the presence of osteophytes.MRI and CT provide complete information;they are indispensable for complex diseases.In addition, the doctor will prescribe blood tests to rule out inflammation and rheumatism, and if necessary, a joint biopsy will be performed.Densitometry is necessary for osteoporosis - it will show the patient's bone density.
Treatment of knee pain
If the pathology is traumatic in nature, treatment is carried out by traumatologists, sometimes in a hospital.Light bruises disappear on their own within a few days;It is recommended to apply absorbent ointments to the knee to quickly dissolve the hematoma.If there is pain, ointments with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory components should be applied.
How to treat when the knee hurts due to an inflammatory lesion?In the acute stage of bursitis, synovitis, arthritis, the affected leg requires rest;Ice compresses can be applied to it for 15 minutes during 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 the pain subsides, physiotherapy and exercise therapy are prescribed to prevent chronic inflammation in the joint.
If a person has pain in his knees due to gonarthrosis, what should he do in this situation?The main drugs for treatment are chondroprotectors and injections of hyaluronic acid.These drugs are designed to restore the nutrition of the articular cartilage, thereby stopping its deterioration.Also, the following should be prescribed for knee rehabilitation:
- Intravenous drugs;
- Physiotherapy;
- Gymnastics;
- Massage;
- Vitamin complexes.
Infectious diseases of the joints are an indication for the introduction of antibiotics into the joint spaces or taking drugs orally.In some cases, it is necessary to perform an operation to remove the tissues affected by the pus.Advanced forms of arthrosis with the spread of osteophytes are also treated with surgical intervention.Sometimes only joint replacement with a prosthesis allows a person to maintain normal walking ability.