05/10/2022
The knee is one of the most commonly injured joints in the body. It is hugely important to the normal function of our everyday lives, such as walking, getting out of a chair and going up and down stairs. It is also vital during sport and activities like running, cycling and jumping. Knee pain is one of the most common injuries which we see here at RAPID.
Knee Pain can be simply split into acute knee pain and chronic knee pain.
Acute knee pain normally has a clear moment of injury, such as a fall, a twist or an impact. There may have been a snap or a pop and pain was likely immediate after this incident. There may have been swelling and bruising. It might have been very difficult to walk and put weight on the leg after the injury. These types of injuries can be quite debilitating and it is important to get them assessed as soon as possible in order to find out what structures are involved (muscle, tendon, bone, ligament, meniscus) and what the recovery journey will be like.
Chronic knee pain usually has no one clear moment of onset. It normally comes on slowly and progressively gets worse over the subsequent days, weeks, months and sometimes even years! This pain often occurs after starting a new activity (such as walking, running, tennis or the gym) or following a period of heavy manual work (gardening, moving house). This pain can be quite debilitating as well, and often a combination of rest, anti inflammatories and pain killers may have been unsuccessful. You may have put it down to, or been told that, it is the result of wear and tear or of an old injury. You may think that it is something that you will have to live with for the rest of your life. You may think that you need an injection or an operation.
At RAPID we often see patients who have had chronic knee pain for a long time, have seen multiple professionals in the past without success and go on to make a full recovery with our expert assessment and rehabilitation.
