Knee pain is something anyone can encounter, and go-to relief methods tend to be anti-inflammatory medication and painkillers, but the effect is often not satisfactory. The pain may persist, worsen, and in severe cases make it so that even walking becomes difficult.
There are many types and causes of knee pain, and proper treatment requires a holistic view that enables one to get at the root cause of this joint pain.
The Most Common Areas of Knee Pain
The most common areas of knee pain are the medial plica inside the knee joint.The friction phenomenon on the inside of the knee joint will cause physical damage (chondrocyte, interstitial damage) or chemical corrosion caused by joint synovitis, and the cartilage fragments produced above the joint will cause friction, resulting severe pain.
Anatomically, the medial plica of the knee joint is a joint capsule, which is a soft tissue.
Under repeated friction and clamping (which can be up to 1 million times a year), it will become inflamed and swollen.
The Most Common Cause of Knee Pain
The most common cause of knee pain is the leg length discrepancy (LLD). The incidence of LLD is about 40 percent to 70 percent. LLD can be further divided into “structural LLD” and “functional LLD”.“Structural LLD” refers to the actual difference in bone length between the two feet; “functional LLD” refers to changes in the biomechanical system of the lower limbs due to external factors, making the length of the two legs comparatively longer or shorter, but the actual bone length is the same.
Diagnosed functional LLD means the difference between the feet is more than 2 cm, at which time it should be actively treated.
In addition to causing knee pain, LLD can also easily cause ankle and hip pain, pelvic pain, scoliosis, back pain, cervical pain, and even headache!
Causes of LLD
1. The skeletal development of the lower extremities is uneven or fracturedThis part is the main cause of structural LLD. The easiest way to deal with it is to wear corrective insoles to reduce the difference in the length between the legs.
Pelvic dislocation includes anterior and posterior rotation, internal and external rotation of the ilium on both sides, dislocation of the sacroiliac joint, and excessive curvature of the sacral vertebra. In real life, more than 90 percent of people’s pelvis is slightly inclined, mainly because most people habitually do movements leaning to one side. A small number of people may suffer trauma and dislocate their pelvis.
Hip transposition is when the femoral head leaves its normal position in the hip socket, causing an abnormality in the hip joint. Since most people cannot feel hip inversion, the long-term cumulative results will easily lead to the body skewing.
Due to the pain in the ankle, knee, and hip joints on the affected side, the weight of the body will be concentrated on the healthy side when walking, which can easily cause joint injury on the healthy side, pelvis skew, and scoliosis, resulting in functional LLD.
When sitting, the body is tilted backward, sideways, or crossing legs, and the standing posture is not correct, which can easily cause pelvic dislocation and hip joint transposition.
Poor exercise posture or habitual unilateral movements will induce different degrees of tightness of the muscles and ligaments on both sides of the body, result in the pulling of the muscles and ligaments, and cause the bones to deviate from the correct position.
Tightness of the lower extremity muscles and ligaments is often the result of the five items mentioned above. Weakness of the muscles and ligaments of the lower extremities is mainly due to lack of exercise or compression of the nerves leading to the lower limbs.
6 Exercises That Keep Your Knees Healthy
When the inside of the knee joint is painful, stuck, or emitting a rubbing sound, it means that the knee joint has started to rub, and you should pay attention to the health care of the knee joint. Since the main cause of knee pain is LLD, how to correct the LLD by improving pelvic dislocation and hip joint transposition is more professional and complex, and this part will be explained in detail in a separate topic.The following introduces six simple knee exercises.
Sit with one foot straight and toes pointed upwards, tensing the muscles of the thighs. After holding for 10 seconds, lower your calf slowly. Do 10 to 20 reps on each foot. Do more when you wake up in the morning to make your feet more flexible.
Train the muscles around the joints to stabilize the joints.
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Sitting, hold the distal end of the calf near the ankle with both hands, let the calf adduct as much as possible to the hip, bend the knee joint to the maximum angle, and hold for 30 seconds. After that, straighten the leg, and then gently allow the leg to bend and stretch for five times.
Repeat each of the above five times.
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In a sitting position, straighten one leg, make its heel and the distal end of the calf lean against another chair, and press the knee with appropriate force from top to bottom with both hands for 30 seconds. Be careful not to shake or vibrate the joints. Then lower the leg and gently allow the leg to bend and stretch for five times.
Repeat each of the above five times.
As a result of long-term inflammation and pain in it, the knee joint will become more and more tense. The above knee tuck exercise is to pull the tendons in front of the knee joint, and the knee compression exercise is to pull the tendons behind the knee joint. Through these two exercises, you can relax the tight knee joint, reduce the pressure between the cartilage of the knee joint, and make the joint more flexible.
The above actions are recommended to be done in the morning, noon, and evening.
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First, let your body lie flat on the bench (it can be a bed, a small table, or three chairs put together) with your arms extended above your head, and one foot placed on a post (or a corner or a door) perpendicular to the bed. The other foot naturally hangs down and draws in. Do the stretch on one foot for 10 minutes, then switch to the other foot.
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Stand with your feet on the stretching board, keep the back straight. Stretch your arms upwards, as if your hands are holding up the sky. At the beginning, the inclination angle of the stretching board should not be too large. After the tendons of the legs become loose, increase the inclination angle gradually. Stand and stretch 10 minutes at a time. This method can balance the tension of the muscles and ligaments of the two legs. For people with LLD, it has the effect of adjusting balance.
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Gently massage around the patella and medial plica of the knee joint with fingers, so as to dredge the meridians around the knee joint, and improve the chronic inflammation and pain of the knee joint.
For knee joint pain and degeneration, acupuncture or massage therapy can reduce the inflammation and swelling of the knee joint, relax the tight ligaments inside and outside the knee joint, reduce the pressure on the knee joint, and promote the self-repair of the knee joint.
Activities to Avoid
From a practical point of view, all excessive and repeated knee bending actions are detrimental to the knee joint and should be avoided as much as possible. For example:- Sudden bending or prolonged 90-degree knee bending
- Repeated bending and straightening (e.g., riding a bicycle)
- Repeated squatting and kneeling (e.g., gardening activities)
- Going up and down stairs, climbing mountains
Appropriate Activities
- When sitting down or standing up, hold your knees with both palms and slowly sit down or stand up. This action relieves pressure on the knee joint and reduces damage.
- Be sure the sitting and standing postures are correct to reduce the occurrence of LLD.
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