Pain in the knee joint is a very common occurrence in a person's life. This can be caused by 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 exposed to heavy daily loads, especially in overweight people. It is also possible for symptoms to appear during intensive sports, during everyday 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;
- damage;
- dystrophy of one of the elements.
Pain in the knee is a symptomatic manifestation of many diseases of the knee joint. What causes knee pain? In order to accurately determine the cause in a particular case, diagnostic measures are required. 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, there will be characteristic and specific manifestations that are determined in laboratory, instrumental and other studies.
Arthritis
If the knees hurt after a long rest or heavy loads, it is arthritis. This pathology of the knee joint is detected in about 5-15% of patients who consult a doctor because of pain in the joint area.
Fact! Arthritis is a disease common to all age groups of the population, but young people are more susceptible to this disease.
A characteristic sign for most arthritis is sharp pain in the knee, i. e. acute onset - within 1-2 days.
Arthritis is an inflammatory process, so acute pain in the knee joint is accompanied by the following signs:
- edema;
- swelling;
- hyperemia;
- severe pain that worsens at night.
In arthrosis and damage to the cartilage of the meniscus, the pain is manifested or intensified by motor load on the knee joint, that is, the pain will be alleviated if there is no load on the knee, unlike arthritis. Arthritis is a pain syndrome of a different etiology and will not be solved 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 category is older than 40 years, often both left and right knees are affected at the same time. Severe pain may not appear immediately, but the sensations gradually increase over time: for someone a week or two, for someone - a month. Unlike arthritis, the knee only hurts when you put weight on it:
- At first, a person feels pain after a long walk.
- Over time, even walking short distances brings 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 stretch the knees with a load.
- The pain syndrome disappears if you rest, immobilize the joint.
Over time, without proper treatment, the symptoms worsen significantly:
- the joint is deformed;
- a cracking sound is heard when walking or extending the knee.
- the pain intensifies.
Pathogenesis is the result of destruction of the structure, degeneration of the cartilaginous lining of the joint cavity, which leads to deformity of the joint. Primary or age-related arthrosis occurs as a result of natural cartilage wear, secondary - as a result of injuries or a number of other reasons. Such causes can be infectious arthritis, tumor lesions of bone or cartilage tissue, which is why this disease can occur in people of different age categories.
Meniscopathy
They are also a common cause of joint pain.
For reference! Among patients who seek help for pain in the knee joint, about 25-35% have meniscal injuries of various etiologies.
This pathology is recorded in people of any age, different professional activities and is equally common in men and women. Menisci are injured during active movements:
- At the moment of the injury, a characteristic click is heard, after which the knee may hurt sharply.
- Then a cracking or crepitus in the knee.
- After that, a sharp pain is felt that intensifies.
- A person in this condition cannot move at all in the knee joint.
The pain may subside after a while, and the 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 computed tomography or magnetic resonance, and is treated, depending on the severity, conservatively or surgically.
Tendinitis
Tendonitis is an inflammatory process in the tissues of muscle tendons, at the point of their attachment. This disease most often affects active children and adolescents, athletes:
- cyclists;
- basketball players;
- volleyball players;
- athletes.
The disease exists in two forms:
- Tenosynovitis is an inflammation of the tendon sheath.
- Tendobursitis is a lesion of the tendon sac.
The cause of this phenomenon can be not only an injury associated with active movement, but also such diseases:
- gout;
- arthritis;
- immunodeficiency conditions;
- infectious diseases;
- excessive physical activity;
- muscular imbalance of the forces acting on the joint.
In case of tendonitis of the knees, the pain is paroxysmal, that is, the pain increases with the loading of the tendon, in severe forms or in the later stages of the disease, 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 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. Different drugs are prescribed:
- Tissue repair agents;
- anti-inflammatory drugs;
- antibiotics.
Physiotherapy procedures are also prescribed. In advanced cases, with necrosis, surgical removal of dead tissues and plastic tendon formations is performed.
knee bursitis
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 are talking about pathologies of an infectious nature, then the following factors can be the cause:
- skin damage in the knee area;
- open wound injuries;
- various septic conditions;
- presence of infection in the blood;
- overweight;
- increased load on the joint.
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;
- noticeable changes in the shape of the joint;
- the presence of swelling in the knee area;
- redness;
- severe mobility 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:
- prepatellar;
- suprapatellar;
- infrapatellar bursitis.
This pathology is, as a rule, quite easily diagnosed and treated, except for cases of elderly patients, where 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, there is an intertendon sac on the posterior surface of the knee region. As a result of the following factors, a pathological effusion occurs in the joint cavity, which penetrates into the intertental sac:
- trauma;
- dystrophic changes;
- inflammatory processes.
As a result, the sac enlarges, becomes noticeable, and this is called a Baker's cyst. In the initial stages of development, it can be invisible, not cause obvious discomfort, that is, asymptomatic. Later, due to the increase in size, the knee hurts a lot, because the cyst begins to compress the nerves and blood vessels, and the mobility of the joint is also disturbed. Flexion movements become difficult and are accompanied by severe pain.
Dissection of osteochondrosis
This disease is also a common cause of knee pain. Usually, the articular surfaces that make up the knee joint are lined with cartilage. This pathology is caused by the fact that a small surface of the cartilage becomes necrotic and peels off, due to which a free body is formed in the joint cavity, which causes many problems.
It manifests symptomatically in the following way:
- mild pain and discomfort;
- when you move, the pain increases;
- swelling may develop.
A detached fragment of cartilage tissue, when found in the joint cavity, can interfere with movement, which patients complain about, and characteristic clicks or creaking can be heard when moving. After peeling, a defect remains on the smooth joint surface, which contributes to traumatizing the joint and will lead to osteoarthritis or other pathologies in the future.
Doctors consider the cause of the development of this disease to be frequent joint injuries, but sometimes there are patients who have not had any injuries before. The diagnosis is made based on the methods of computer tomography, magnetic resonance and X-ray examination.
Gout disease
Gout or gouty arthritis of the knee joint occurs as a result of disturbed metabolism, which leads to excessive formation and deposition of uric acid salts, so-called urates. They accumulate both in the joint cavity itself and around the cartilage and tendons and cause inflammation.
Along with the disease, there is severe pain in the joint, 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. Therefore, the question of why the knee hurts can only be answered by a specialist doctor after the diagnosis.
General principles of treatment
Everyone wonders if their 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 treatment includes treatment of the pathology that caused the pain. Based on the results of diagnostic studies, the doctor prescribes the appropriate therapy and decides on the method of treating the diseased joints. These can be the following methods:
- special therapeutic and preventive exercises;
- fats;
- compresses.
In case of inflammatory phenomena, anti-inflammatory substances are prescribed, and if there are problems with cartilage tissue, then various chondroprotectors or corticosteroids.
For reference! It is possible to make a puncture, both for diagnosis and for treatment, for example, in the case of Becker's cyst.
Sometimes, with advanced pathology, surgical treatment is also indicated, which is also diverse. In most cases, they resort to arthroscopic operations: to remove the articular body or to resect the area of affected tissue. Also, if other therapy is ineffective, knee arthroplasty is used, i. e. replacement of joint elements or the entire joint with an artificial implant. So, the answer to the question "what to do if the knee hurts" is an urgent visit to the doctor.