Pain in the knee joint is a very common occurrence in a person's life. It can be due to many factors. As a rule, the main reason is that, due to its anatomical structure, the knee joint is quite sensitive to injuries, it is subjected to heavy daily loads, especially in overweight people. It is also possible for a symptom to appear during intense sports, during daily household or professional activities.
Causes of knee pain
The knee joint consists of many different elements, each of which carries its own functional load. Why do my knees hurt? The following factors can cause pain in the knee joint:
- traumatization;
- injury;
- dystrophy of any of the elements.
Knee pain is a symptomatic manifestation of a large number of diseases of the knee joint. What causes knee pain? To accurately determine the cause in a particular case, diagnostic measures are needed. Pain can be the result of trauma to the elements:
- ligament apparatus;
- tendon formations;
- damage to the cartilage lining.
For various knee diseases, in addition to pain, specific manifestations will be characteristic, determined in laboratory, instrumental and other studies.
Arthritis
If the knees hurt after a long period of rest or heavy loads, this is arthritis. This pathology of the knee joint is detected in about 5-15% of patients who consult a doctor for pain in the joint area.
Fact! Arthritis is a common disease for all age groups of the population, but young people are more susceptible to the disease.
A characteristic sign for most arthritis is a sharp pain in the knee, that is, an acute onset - within 1-2 days.
Arthritis is an inflammatory process, so acute pain in the knee joint is accompanied by such signs:
- edema;
- swelling;
- hyperemia;
- severe pain that worsens at night.
With arthrosis and damage to the cartilage of the meniscus, the pain is manifested or intensified with a motor load on the knee joint, that is, the pain will be relieved if there is no load on the knee, unlike arthritis. With arthritis, the pain syndrome is of a different etiology, and it will not work to get rid of it by reducing the load and immobilizing the joint. In addition, arthritis can affect several joints at once, except for the knee.
arthrosis
Another very common knee disease, accompanied by severe pain. The pathology is found in 35-40% of people who come with knee pain, as a rule this age group is over 40 years old, often the left knee and the right knee are simultaneously affected. Severe pain may not appear immediately, but the sensations increase gradually over time: for someone a week or two, for someone - for a month. Unlike arthritis, the knee only hurts when you put a load on it:
- At first, a person feels pain after a long walk.
- Over time, even walking short distances causes a lot of discomfort.
- Later, the patient has great difficulty going up and down stairs.
- It is difficult to get up from a chair, that is, to drop the knees with a load.
- The pain syndrome disappears if you rest, immobilize the joint.
Over time, without proper treatment, symptoms worsen:
- the joint is deformed;
- there is a popping noise when walking or extending the knee.
- the pain intensifies.
The pathogenesis is due to the destruction of the structure, the degeneration of the cartilaginous lining of the articular cavity, which leads to joint deformation. Primary or age-related arthrosis occurs as a result of natural wear and tear of cartilage, secondary - it is the result of injuries or a number of other reasons. Such causes can be infectious arthritis, tumoral lesions of bone or cartilage tissue, as a result of which this disease can appear in people of different age categories.
Meniscopathies
They are also a common cause of joint pain.
For reference! Among patients who seek help because they have pain in the knee joint, about 25-35% have meniscus injuries of various etiologies.
This pathology is observed in people of any age, different professional activities and is equally common in men and women. Menisci are injured during active movements:
- At the time of injury, a characteristic click is heard, after which the knee may be severely injured.
- Then a crack or crepitus in the knee.
- After that, a sharp pain is felt, which intensifies.
- A person in this condition cannot move the knee joint at all.
The pain may go away after a while and meniscopathy becomes chronic. But without proper treatment, edema develops, the joint swells and movements in it can be blocked, which is accompanied by severe pain and can lead to the development of arthrosis. The risk group is:
- people suffering from gout or arthritis of the joints;
- diabetics;
- people with weak ligaments or overweight.
The disease is diagnosed by computerized tomography or magnetic resonance and treated, depending on the severity, conservatively or surgically.
Tendonitis
Tendonitis is an inflammatory process in the tissues of muscle tendons, at the place of their attachment. This disease most often affects active children and teenagers, athletes:
- cyclists;
- basketball players;
- volleyball players;
- the athletes.
The disease appears in two forms:
- Tenosynovitis is an inflammation of the tendon sheath.
- Tendobursitis is a lesion of the tendon bag.
The cause of this phenomenon can be not only an injury related to active movement, but also such diseases:
- gout;
- arthritis;
- immunodeficiency states;
- infectious diseases;
- excessive physical activity;
- muscle imbalance of the forces acting on the joint.
With tendonitis, the knees hurt paroxysmally, that is, the pain increases with a load on the tendon, in severe forms or in the later stages of the disease, a rupture of the inflamed tendon is possible. The disease is diagnosed in different ways, sometimes it can be detected by laboratory methods, for example, when the cause is an infection.
But if the cause is gout or inflammatory processes in the joint itself, then radiographic research methods and magnetic resonance imaging can reveal the disease.
In the initial stages of the development of the disease, conservative therapy helps, which includes immobilizing the joint with plaster and limiting motor activity. Various medications have been prescribed:
- tissue repair agents;
- anti-inflammatory drugs;
- antibiotics.
Physiotherapy procedures are also prescribed. In advanced cases, with necrosis, surgical removal of dead tissue and plastic tendon formations is performed.
knee bursa
This is a disease of the joint bags, characterized by an inflammatory process and the presence of exudative fluid.
For reference! The causes of bursitis are constant, excessive stress on the joint.
If we talk about pathology of an infectious nature, then the following factors can be the cause:
- skin damage in the knee area;
- open wounds;
- various septic conditions;
- the presence of an infection in the blood;
- overweight;
- increased load on joints.
Also, the pathology is secondary, as a complication of gout or arthritis of the knee joint. Like any inflammatory process, bursitis will be accompanied by symptoms:
- pain syndrome;
- visible changes in the shape of the joint;
- the presence of swelling in the knee area;
- redness;
- severe movement difficulties.
The severity and visibility of these manifestations will depend on the severity and localization of the process.
Depending on the localization of the inflamed joint capsule, there are such types of pathology:
- parapatellar;
- suprapatellar;
- infrapatellar bursitis.
This pathology, as a rule, is diagnosed and treated quite easily, except in cases of elderly patients, in whom it is chronic and difficult to treat.
Baker's cyst
Another pathological phenomenon of the knee joint, which brings with it a lot of pain and trouble. A cyst is also called a popliteal hernia, it is a protrusion in the popliteal fossa. Normally, between the tendons, gastrocnemius and semimembranosus muscles, on the back surface of the knee region, there is an intertendon pouch. As a result of the following factors, a pathological effusion is formed in the joint cavity, which penetrates into the bursa:
- trauma;
- dystrophic changes;
- inflammatory processes.
As a result, the sac grows, becomes visible, and this is called a Baker's cyst. In the initial stages of development, it can be invisible, not cause obvious discomfort, that is, it is asymptomatic. Later, due to the increase in size, the knee hurts a lot, as the cyst begins to compress the nerves and blood vessels, and the mobility of the joint is impaired. Bending movements become difficult and are also accompanied by severe pain.
Dissection of osteochondrosis
This disease is also a common cause of knee pain. Normally, the articular surfaces that make up the knee joint are lined with cartilage. This pathology is caused by the fact that a small area of the cartilage lining becomes necrotic and exfoliates, as a result of which a loose body is formed in the joint cavity, which causes many problems.
It is manifested symptomatically as follows:
- mild pain and discomfort;
- when moving, the pain intensifies;
- swelling may develop.
A detached fragment of cartilage tissue, once in the articular cavity, can impede movement, which patients complain about, and when you move, you can hear characteristic clicks or a crack. After exfoliation, a defect remains on the smooth articular surface, which contributes to traumatizing the joint and will lead to osteoarthritis or other pathologies in the future.
Doctors consider that frequent joint injuries are the cause of the development of this disease, but sometimes there are patients who have no previous injuries. The diagnosis is based on the methods of computed tomography, magnetic resonance and X-ray examination.
Gout disease
Gout or gouty arthritis of the knee joint occurs as a result of damage to the metabolism, which leads to the formation and excessive deposition of uric acid salts, the so-called urates. They accumulate both in the joint cavity itself and around the cartilage and tendons and cause inflammation.
With the disease, there is severe pain in the joints, the knee area becomes red and swollen. If gout becomes chronic, then urate deposits cause a clear deformation of the joint, which leads to a violation, the inability to perform a normal range of motion.
The disease is diagnosed with the help of X-rays and blood tests for uric acid. It is difficult to treat, but in the initial stages of development, special diets and drug treatment are used.
The causes of knee pain can be many different pathologies with completely different etiology and pathogenesis. So, only a specialist doctor can answer for sure the question why the knee hurts after the diagnosis.
General principles of treatment
Everyone asks if your knee hurts, what to do? Many people, with the appearance of mild pain, discomfort, prefer to endure, because they think that it will pass by itself, this should not be done. The knee joint hurts because it is a manifestation of various pathologies and in the absence of timely, adequate therapy, these pathologies can lead to serious consequences.
If the knees hurt, then the treatment includes the therapy of the pathology that caused the pain. Based on the results of diagnostic studies, the doctor prescribes the appropriate therapy and decides how to treat the diseased joints. These can be the following methods:
- special therapeutic and preventive exercises;
- ointment;
- compress.
In case of inflammatory phenomena, anti-inflammatory substances are prescribed, and if there are problems with cartilage tissue, then various chondroprotectors or corticosteroid drugs.
For reference! It is possible to perform a puncture, both for diagnosis and for treatment, for example, in the case of Becker's cyst.
Sometimes, with advanced pathology, surgical treatment is indicated, which is also diverse. In most cases, they use arthroscopic surgery: to remove the articular body or to remove the area of the affected tissue. Also, if other therapy is ineffective, knee arthroplasty is used, i. e. replacement of articular elements or the entire joint with an artificial implant. Thus, the answer to the question "what to do if the knee hurts" is an immediate visit to the doctor.