Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms for which patients turn to orthopedists and other specialists. Many people completely ignore the appearance of unpleasant sensations, considering them old and almost natural. But there are many prerequisites for pain in the knee joint, because it has a complex structure, it is affected by numerous external and internal harmful factors. Some diseases are serious and require urgent treatment.
Who is more likely to have a knee injury?
The knees are formed of several bones connected by muscles, ligaments, tendons. There are also 5 synovial sacs - cavities surrounded by membranes designed to protect the joints. Between the joints of the bones are the interarticular cartilage - the menisci, which help the knee to move freely. Violation of even one part of the knee joint leads to the appearance of unpleasant symptoms.
Knee joint pain is especially common in people with flat feet. This is a pathology of the feet, which impairs the ability of the limbs to absorb shocks. With age, increased loads on the joints cause their destruction and the development of inflammation - pain syndrome appears. Different types of deformities of the feet, lower legs have similar consequences.
There are a number of factors under the influence of which knee pain is more common:
- overweight;
- Passive lifestyle;
- High sports loads;
- diabetes;
- Vascular diseases;
- Older age;
- Knee surgery and injuries;
- Work with increased load on the legs.
The causes and treatment of knee pain vary greatly, as does the severity of the sensation. If the 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, even at rest, accompanied by swelling, redness of the skin and squeaking. All of these signs should alert the person and make them visit a doctor.
Pain due to bruises in the knee
Among the traumatic causes of joint dysfunction, bruises are the most common. Why does the knee hurt if the symptoms were preceded by only a minor bruise? Even a mild injury is accompanied by bleeding into the soft periarticular tissues, their swelling. As a result, the nerve roots suffer, pain appears.
In severe cases, knee pain intensifies with flexion and extension of the leg, the person stops moving due to sharp feelings in the joint. On palpation, swelling of the foot can be seen, it is hot to the touch. How to treat such an injury? One should consult a traumatologist, take an X-ray, follow all the recommendations and ensure the peace of the foot.
Often traumatic hemarthrosis becomes the cause of pain in the knee joint after a banal bruise. It is an outpouring of blood into the joint cavity, which causes edema, swelling of the synovial membranes. As a result, the joint is filled with blood, and inflammation begins in it. Without proper treatment, an injury can result in the development of chronic osteoarthritis, even at a young age.
Other types of knee injuries
If the leg hurts in the knee, and trauma has contributed to such feelings, the causes can be in various damages of the joint components. Here are the main ones:
- Meniscopathy. It is a flattening or tearing of the meniscus. Injuries are especially common among professional athletes, people who do extreme sports, and injuries at home. The person feels that the knee is sharply ill, the nature of the sensation is piercing, dagger, the joint loses mobility for a while.
- Ligament damage. Rupture of the ligaments occurs when the leg twists, after the jump the limb stretches out in an unnatural position. There is a sharp pain, the leg swells, the position of the joint changes, it becomes loose.
- Rupture of the cruciate ligament. Because these ligaments are located inside the joint, injuries often lead to blood spilling into the knee cavity. Only a puncture will help pump out the blood and make an accurate diagnosis.
Painful pain in the knee joint is sometimes accompanied by chronic dislocations of the patella. Without treatment of acute injury in a certain number of patients, the dislocation becomes chronic and gives regular relapses. In children, this pathology causes an X-shaped curvature of the leg and leads to a serious violation of its function. Sometimes the pathology affects the knees on two legs.
Inflammatory diseases of the knee
Often, standard treatment for knee pain is ineffective. In this case, it is not the joint itself that may be affected, but the surrounding soft tissues. Thus, tendonitis, or inflammation of the tendons, can be caused by increased load on the extremities, previous leg injuries, allergies, drug reactions, etc. The knee joint hurts with such a disease, as a rule, during the day or in the evening, the pain decreases at night. In the acute phase, the mobility of the joint is very limited, the syndrome is persistent, it is not amenable to therapy with ointments and creams. Sharp sensations are also observed on palpation of the lateral part of the knee.
If the knees hurt regularly, the symptom worsens after hypothermia, the cause may be synovitis - inflammation of the synovial membranes. Inflammatory exudate appears inside the joint, causing cracking and pain. The causes of pathology are different:
- autoimmune diseases;
- Metabolic diseases;
- Injuries in the past;
- Osteoarthritis.
Another "popular" disease in which the knee hurts is bursitis. Occurs when the bursa (joint bag) is inflamed. In addition to the pain syndrome, there is redness, swelling, increased sensitivity of the patella zone. If you do not clarify in time how to treat bursitis, it almost always becomes chronic.
Neoplasms in the knee joint zone
Malignant tumors of this localization are rare, the pain syndrome is typical for 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 below the knee, on its posterior surface. Apparently, the skin above the cyst is normal, not inflamed, in the bent form the swelling may not be at all. In a standing position, a clearly defined, soft, elastic formation appears at the site of cyst localization. Appearing after a unilateral knee injury, she suffered cartilage damage. Very often, the cyst is accompanied by chronic synovitis, arthrosis, rheumatoid arthritis. Large cysts cause not only knee pain, but also severe limitation of limb mobility. Due to the compression of blood vessels and nerves, other symptoms are cold skin, paleness, tingling and numbness.
- Meniscus cyst. It occurs in the outer or inner meniscus, when a cavity with fluid is localized inside the cartilage. The knees in this case hurt after heavy loads or towards the end of the day. Large cysts may be visible on the side of the joint, while smaller ones are only visible on ultrasound or X-ray.
A rare pathology is Hoff's disease - the transformation of adipose tissue, which becomes fibrous and causes joint dysfunction. In the background of this pathology often develops arthrosis, which causes pain in the knee joint. Causes - hormonal disorders, menopause in women.
Infectious pathologies of the joints
Against the background of infection, the knee joint hurts sharply, sharply, providing rest does not cause relief. Even urogenital and intestinal infections can cause complications in the musculoskeletal system, resulting in reactive arthritis. Bacteria (salmonella, chlamydia, gonococci, etc. ) penetrate the bloodstream into the cavity of the bone joint, deposit on the tissues and cause inflammation. The tendons are usually inflamed, so the knee is swollen and hot to the touch.
Tuberculosis is a serious disease. Mycobacterium tuberculosis multiplies in bone tissue, causing bone melting, cartilage and soft tissue necrosis. Without an ambulance, the knee joints ache and collapse, and the process affects more and more areas. As a result, fistulas appear - cavities with pus, which can spill out and damage the whole organism.
Acute, urgent disease is osteomyelitis of the bone. What to do if your knees hurt, and the process is accompanied by weakness, muscle pain, temperature up to 40 degrees? If the pain in the knee is dull, cracks, and the tissues themselves are swollen, red, blue, you should urgently call an ambulance and go for emergency surgery. Otherwise you may lose a leg or die.
Knee pain - causes of degenerative nature
After the age of 50, a large number of people have knee pain. Prerequisites are 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, destruction of cartilage with a change in the shape of the bone heads. Most often, in the early stage of pathology, the knee hurts on one side, after a few years the lesion becomes bilateral. In the morning, the stiffness of the leg worries me, but it passes quickly. Enhancement of sensation is possible after physical work, intense sports, long walks.
In the advanced stages, the joint tissues collapse, osteophytes grow on the side of the joint space. These are spikes of bone tissue, which in severe cases break and cause unbearable pain. There are a number of degenerative pathologies whose symptoms will be similar to gonarthrosis:
- Osteochondropathy. It affects the articular surface of the bone, it is associated with trauma, sports. Adolescents can develop for no apparent reason.
- Arthritis. It occurs rheumatoid, psoriatic, gouty, causes chronic inflammation and joint destruction.
- Chondromatosis. The etiology is unclear. The disease causes the appearance of nodules on the synovial membranes, which restrict 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, back pain, and periodic fractures.
Other prerequisites for knee pain
When the knees hurt, the etiology of sensations can be in the defeat of the peripheral nervous system. Thus, sciatic nerve neuropathy on the background of lumbar spine damage leads to a number of symptoms. The man's knees are broken, the thigh area hurts, the joints of the limbs are weak, and the sensitivity of the skin is disturbed. The foot reflexes also change.
Sometimes the whole knee joint hurts due to vascular disorders. Only in adolescence you should not worry much - due to the rapid growth of the body, the veins 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, in the presence of atherosclerosis, the knees also often hurt, what to do in this case? Without normalization of fat metabolism, plaque will continue to accumulate inside the arteries. The vessels become clogged, they stop feeding the joint completely. Osteoarthritis develops, the pain becomes chronic. Unpleasant sensations in the knee area can also be caused by varicose veins, thrombophlebitis and vascular thrombosis.
How to diagnose?
Knees hurt people quite often - how to treat the condition can be determined only after examination. Both sharp and dragging knee pains are characteristic of a mass of pathologies, some of which are very dangerous. The diagnosis should be made by a surgeon, orthopedist, neurologist, rheumatologist, traumatologist. He will conduct a survey, find out the exact symptoms of the disease, determine the accompanying signs. Also, the doctor will perform tests and physical examinations at the first examination in order to clarify the nature of the problem.
What to do when your knees hurt, what instrumental methods will help identify the cause? Usually awarded:
- ultrasound;
- MRI;
- CT;
- Radiography.
The choice of the correct technique should be left to the doctor. Therefore, ultrasound well reflects changes in the leg with arthrosis, damage to the meniscus. Radiography perfectly shows bone deformities, the presence of osteophytes. MRI and CT provide complete information, they are indispensable in complex diseases. In addition, the doctor will prescribe blood tests to rule out inflammation and rheumatism, and a biopsy of the joint will be done if necessary. Osteoporosis requires densitometry - it will show the density of bone tissue in the patient.
Treatment of knee pain
If the pathology is traumatic in nature, traumatologists are involved in the treatment, sometimes it is carried out in a hospital. Light bruises go away on their own within a few days, for fast resorption of hematomas, it is recommended to apply absorbent fats on the knee. In addition to pain, it is necessary to rub ointments with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory components.
How to treat when a knee hurts with its inflammatory lesion? In the acute stage of bursitis, synovitis, arthritis, the diseased leg needs rest, and ice packs can be applied on it for 15 minutes during the first 3 days. Severe pain is relieved by injections of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, injections of anesthetics directly into the wrist. To prevent chronic inflammation in the joint after the pain has stopped, physiotherapy and exercise therapy are prescribed.
When a person has knee pain due to gonarthrosis, what to do in this case? The main drugs for treatment are chondroprotectors and hyaluronic acid injections. These drugs are designed to restore the nutrition of articular cartilage, as a result, it stops decomposing. Also for knee rehabilitation must be awarded:
- vascular drugs;
- physiotherapy;
- gymnastics;
- Massage;
- Vitamin complexes.
Infectious diseases of the joints are an indication for the introduction of antibiotics into the joint cavities or oral administration of drugs. In some cases, it is necessary to perform an operation to remove the tissues affected by pus. Surgical intervention is also used to treat advanced forms of osteoarthritis with osteophyte growth. Sometimes just replacing a joint with a prosthesis allows a person to maintain the ability to walk normally.