Knee Pain Treatments

Over one million Americans annually have knee surgery. More than five hundred thousand of these will be arthroscopies and two hundred and fifty thousand will be total knee replacements. Most of these orthopedic surgeries will be done in an attempt to relieve the pain of a degenerated knee. How come there are so many degenerated knees?

The history in most folks, including elite athletes, is that they had a simple soft tissue injury, either a strain or a sprain. An injury to a tendon or muscle is called a strain, whereas an injury to a ligament is called a sprain. After the injury, the coach, athletic trainer, or physician prescribes the R.I.C.E. protocol. This includes rest, ice, compression, and elevation of the leg. Because the injury didn't heal, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine is offerred, than a cortisone injections.

Many people get two or three of these. What most people don't realize is that to this point everything that was done promoted non-healing of the injury. You see all of these treatments are anti-inflammatories which inhibit the normal healing reaction of the body which is inflammatory.

Eventually the cartilage decays because of the above scenario and arthroscopy is done to "clean out" the joint. Generally by this time, the person can no longer run because of the pain, thus, no more sports. Given enough time-total knee replacement.

People reading this website are either looking for alternatives to help heal their injured knee or have already experienced the "knife treatment" (surgery) and still need their injured knee healed. The first step in healing an injured knee is to stimulate inflammation because inflammation is how the body heals. Any treatments given that decrease the normal inflammatory healing reaction will decrease the body's chances to heal the injured area.

Imagine a person strains their knee and starts having pain. In simplistic term the pain is a signal to the patient and the physician that something is weakened in the joint. To get rid of the pain the structure must be strengthened. In the list are five ligaments, two menisci, one articular cartilage, one group of tendons (pes anserinus) and only one muscle (quadriceps). The main difference between muscles and the rest of the structures is that muscles are massively strong structures with a tremendous blood supply, both outside and inside the muscle (this is why steak is red). Ligaments (representatives of all the rest of the structures), on the other hand, are small tissues that have a poor blood supply (why they appear white).

Muscles, because of their good circulation, heal quickly and rarely cause a long-term problem, whereas ligaments, due to their poor blood supply, often heal incompletely and are the cause of most chronic sports injuries and resultant chronic knee pain. The reason that most elite and recreational athletes give up their sports is because of nonhealing ligament injuries of the knee.

R.I.C.E.

The R.I.C.E. treatment is the gold standard for pain management and sports injuries today. Just go to any emergency room or sports trainer with an acute knee sprain or other joint injury, and the injured person will be given these instructions: Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Most people would also receive instructions to take anti-inflammatory medications. This treatment is recommended because ligament sprains, that is, meniscal / articular cartilage injuries, are often accompanied by quite a bit of swelling, called edema. The premise with the R.I.C.E. treatment is that the swelling and edema is harmful to the tissue.

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