You FEEL the pain in your knee. How do you know it’s from the knee?
Here are some ways to help guide you…
Most therapists and medical professionals hear you say “knee pain” and literally ONLY look at the knee.
Sure, the pain CAN be from the knee, but often it isn’t.
The knee pain might be the end result of poor foot mechanics over a very long time. It might be from a weak glute muscle in your hip.
Pain in the knee doesn’t mean that the pain is in the knee.
Try and recreate the pain by direct pressure over the painful spot. Can you do it? Does the same pain appear? If it does, you may have an issue in the actual knee itself.
If the pain is there with movement of the knee only, then the chances are it’s caused by a structure in (or close to) the knee.
However, if that pain is brought on by something else like squatting or twisting or walking, often the knee is just “where you feel it”.
Often the reason for the pain is overuse of the joint, as a result of some other structure FORCING the knee to compensate.
So, you can certainly LOOK at the knee (and should), but here’s what else you should have assessed:
- Your foot mechanics
- Your balance
- Your ankle and big toe
- Your lower leg
- Your thigh
- Your hip joint
- Your pelvis
- Your lower back
- Your walking mechanics
- Your lymphatics
Your body is the master of compensation. It’ll look for ways AROUND pain. It will do things to try and help you keep moving forward.
If you keep getting pain in your knee, make SURE you see a practitioner who looks way beyond the knee.
Knee pain treatment really begins with the assessment.
If you get this wrong, your treatment will be unsuccessful and far more drawn out.
Sometimes you require diagnostic imaging like MRI or Xray – but this is only if you’ve narrowed the reasons down first.
So many times people have unnecessary imaging – for no gain to you, because there’s nothing wrong with the actual knee itself.
Give us a call if you want another opinion 🙂
