KNEE PAIN IN POWELL, OH

Alot of people attribute knee pain to “arthritis” but it’s so much more complex than that. Someone in their 30s or 40s shouldn’t have “arthritis” in their knees unless something else is going on. And that something else can be a number of things such as problems with the cushions in their knees, something called their meniscus. It can be something called patellofemoral knee pain, which is a term used to describe knee pain that happens because the knee cap isn’t gliding well, usually because of muscular imbalances.

A cause of knee pain that many people, including many physicians don’t know or they don’t understand well is ligament and tendon laxity. The knee has a number of supportive ligaments including:

1. Anterior Cruciate Ligament(ACL) which many athletes tear and requires season ending surgery
2. Posterior Cruciate Ligament(PCL) which isn’t as commonly injured
3. Medial Collateral Ligament(MCL) which is often strained and may not fully heal and can lead to long term laxity(looseness)
4. Lateral Collateral Ligament(LCL) similar to the MCL

5. Patella Tendon(actually a ligament) that attaches the knee cap to the tibia(shin bone). Many people will have pain at the attachment to the tibia especially kids that are active and growing at the same time. Adults get it too, call jumpers knee.

Now why is that important you ask? If you strain these ligaments, what are you hoping will happen with time? You are hoping that they will heal and many times they do heal well, but they don’t always fully heal. That leads to minor instability, which over time can put a strain on the other parts of the knee and lead to knee pain down the line. Many will say that their strain healed, but that their knee wasn’t the same, or that they still have some residual pain. That is a sign that the knee isn’t as stable as it needs to be.

They typical treatment of a knee injury is physical therapy to strengthen the muscles that support the knee.  It gets a lot of people feeling better, but if they don’t have the tendons and ligaments actually addressed, the strengthening of the muscles will still leave his knee unstable. That is because physical therapy doesn’t address the ligament and/or tendon laxity that happened from that injury.

So what does??? That’s where Regenerative Medicine techniques like Prolotherapy and Platelet Rich Plasma injections come in and work well! These injections actually address the ligaments and tendon injuries. It’s an exciting area of medicine that helps to treat the cause of many different pains, not just knee pain. Check out this page to learn more.

If you’d like more information or would like to setup a consultation contact us.