Tips on Reducing Pain in Arthritic Knees

Do you have nagging pain in your knee(s)? Have you injured your knee before from a sports-related mishap or trauma to the knee, and now suffering from its long term effects? Does your doctor told you not to burden your knees but 'forgot' to tell you how? Pain in a damaged knee can be so severe that it might wake the sufferer up from sleep or significantly disturbs his daily activities.

Pain in arthritic knees is caused by either direct rubbing of 'bare bones' against each other or as a result of production of irritant (inflammatory substance) in the joint space, causing pain and swelling in the affected joint.

Arthroscopic pictures of the knee in two patients; one with a normal knee cartilage (above) and another with a degenerated knee (below) where the cartilage has been worn out extensively giving rise to severe pain in the knee with activities.



How do you reduce the burden on your painful knee(s)? Here are some practical tips you can consider :

1. The more weight-bearing you do, the more likely that you increase the burden on your knees. This will in turn cause more pain. Try to reduce unnecessary activities that involves a lot of walking, jumping or running. If certain activities can be done in a non-weight-bearing position such as sitting, do it.
2. If you are overweight, shed some of it. Dietary restrictions coupled with exercises will help you achieve this. Monitoring calorie intake that matches your daily requirement does help. There are a number of activities that can be done to keep fit as well as your weight down without putting excessive burden on your knees (this will be explained further later).
3. Certain positions or activities put a lot of stress on your knees, such as squatting, standing with the knees bent, climbing up and down the stairs, and kneeling on the floor. Utilizing sitting-type toilets will minimize the stress on your knees. Take the elevator or escalator if you have a choice. Use a mop to clean the floor instead of rubbing it using plain cloth, where kneeling is a must.
4. If you want to exercise to keep fit and to reduce weight, perform activities that pose minimal stress on your knees. Swimming and static cycling are two examples of such activities.
5. Use of a walking aid. A walking stick is a social stigma to some people and is considered cumbersome to some, but it is an excellent 'off-loading' device that helps to reduce the load on the knee joint.
6. Do regular 'weight-less' (not weightless) muscle strengthening and joint movement exercises. Static muscle strengthening exercises for the knee (e.g. repeatedly elevating a straight leg off the horizontal plane in a lying position) helps in coordinating and providing support to knee joint movements and helps to reduce pain in the joint. Arthritic joints could easily stiffen from disuse, therefore range-of-motion exercises for the knees are needed to prevent stiffness and contracture.

A straight-leg-raising exercise

For more information, please contact your orthopedic specialist or email to DocNiz at neezlan@yahoo.com