Protecting Your Knees for an Active Life

Our knees are essential for an active life, allowing us to run, hike, and play with loved ones. Common injuries like ACL tears and IT band syndrome can sideline us, and osteoarthritis can develop over time. The good news is there’s a lot we can do to keep our knees healthy!

Prevention is Key

For athletes, strengthening exercises can help prevent ligament tears. Runners can benefit from proper form and footwear to avoid overuse injuries. Maintaining a healthy weight reduces stress on the joint. By taking care of our knees, we can stay active well into our golden years. This means maintaining a healthy lifestyle, listening to our bodies, and seeking professional help when needed. With the right approach, knee pain doesn’t have to limit your life.

Treatment Options for Knee Pain

If your knee pain is only moderate we can treat that with adjustments and some physical therapy that we educate you on in office and see great results. With more severe pain and damage, today’s knee replacements are durable and you may consider it as a last option. However, even with more severe cases there are many effective non-surgical treatments like Ozone injections and PRP injections (Platelet-Rich Plasma) in addition to functional stretching and strengthening and adjustments. We can help create a personalized treatment plan to keep you doing the activities that you enjoy for a long life ahead!

Surgery’s Downside and Long-Term Impact

Surgery for knee issues comes with significant recovery time and isn’t a permanent solution. Due to their temporary nature, replacements only last anywhere from 10-20 years. Meaning you’ll be facing a repeat surgery while older, which adds further complications. These limitations can prevent you from running, hiking, or simply playing with your kids and grandchildren. We have seen patients that were recommended surgery avoid going that route through the cheaper and less invasive option of PRP injections. The accelerated healing that takes place with a PRP shot is usually enough to treat smaller, but stubborn tears and injuries.

Here are several common knee conditions that we can treat when someone comes in with knee pain:

Structural ligament – sprain or torn (ACL, MCL and more)  

These are large ligaments that hold your knee together.  Your knee is built to be a very stable joint with limited movement. It primarily only moves in one direction (forwards and backwards).  Your quads and hamstrings are the large muscles that attach to ligaments in your knee and drive its motions. These ligaments get injured when your knees move beyond their primary movement. Examples include too much extension (hyperextension) and when your knee bends sideways (lateral blow in football).  Also the dreaded non-contact injury to the knee when there is a sudden change in direction. This is a big leading indicator of ligament injuries, like a torn ACL.  

So what can you do about it? For fully torn ligaments, it is recommended to have those surgically repaired, especially if you are wanting to maintain your activity levels.  Aftercare is needed post-surgery to regain the range of motion and muscle strength in order to return to full activity and prevent re-injury.  

Partially torn ligaments can either be repaired through surgery or PRP injections (depending on the severity) or rehabbed through functional rehab. Practicing elements of physical therapy by retraining and strengthening the surrounding tissues in your knee is a must. Additionally, you need to strengthen the large muscles of the lower leg, thigh and your hip to fully recover.

We use some physical therapy to compliment our chiropractic care. This involves stretching tight muscles and strengthening key muscle groups, especially those in the hips. Strong hips play a crucial role in knee function. In fact, weak hip muscles often contribute to knee injuries. So, strengthening your hips becomes a vital part of knee rehab!

Meniscus tears

The meniscus has an additional stabilizing structure to the knee.  It makes part of the knee joint act like a dish to keep the knee in place.  These menisci can tear similar to the ligaments above.  Then they cause pain while bending the knee or with twisting.  

So what can you do about it?  This is going to be very similar to the ligament injuries. With a large tear and high activity levels, surgical repair or PRP treatments may be required. Supplemented with physical therapy in our office and at home.  We need to work on strengthening the large muscle groups around the knee AND the hip. We can not forget about the hip when talking about the knee.  

Hyperextension

This is when your knee straightens so much that it bends backwards. This usually happens with a fall and you try to catch yourself with your leg and your knee buckles. This can lead to some ligament sprains. Adjusting and strengthening the quad is going to be the primary muscle to work on for this.

Jumper’s/Runner’s knee

This is the common name for Infrapatellar tendonopathy.  This is when you feel pain in the front of your knee and under your “knee cap”.  You can feel this tendon just on the bottom part of your knee.  This will come up with those who jump and/or run often. A quick or sustained increase in quadriceps muscle activity with jumping and running will increase the load put on that tendon and can increase inflammation, which will cause pain.

What can you do about this?  Surgery is not needed for this, but proper stretching and strengthening rehab will be the best thing. Stretching the quads out is important, and using a foam roller for the quads will be helpful. We also really need to work on the function of the hips. If the hips are tight then that leads to a tracking issue with the patella and that can lead to this injury as well. 

IT band syndrome

This is marked by pain down the outside part of your hip, thigh and/or knee.  Very common with runners and those who are increasing their mileage.  The IT band stretches down the outside thigh and is relatively easy to over stretch. It’s a thick ligament/tendon structure that give you the ability to stand upright when you are standing on one leg. Something you do all day while walking and running.  

What can you do about if it’s in pain?  You probably guessed it, but rehab to the hip muscles is going to be key for this one. There are two muscles that are attached to the IT band at the hip and they directly affect the IT Band. Often you’ll see inexperienced people give themselves treatment by scraping or foam rolling the IT Band, which hurts so much and we don’t recommend it. It’s not where you should be focussing your attention. 

You should be focusing your attention on the small Tensor Fascia Lata (TFL) muscle in front of the hip and the Glute Medius near the back. The TFL muscle is usually the tight muscle pulling the IT Band more and the Glute Medius muscle is the inactive muscle which is failing to pull the IT Band back to center.  So the goal for rehab should be to stretch the TFL and strengthen the Gluteus Medius muscle. 

Dislocated patella

This is a traumatic injury that occurs when your knee gets hit at an angle and the kneecap moves out of place. You may see the kneecap move all the way toward the outside part of your knee. A dislocated kneecap can cause ligament damage, fractures, or even compromise blood vessels or nerves.

A chiropractor wouldn’t be equipped to handle these potential complications without hospital medical equipment and staff nearby.

Dr. Jared Wadsworth can be an instrumental part of recovery afterwards by providing pain management, inflammation reduction, and improving joint mobility through techniques like soft tissue mobilization, or therapeutic exercises. We can also develop a treatment program to make another dislocation less likely.

Knee Arthritis

Knee arthritis develops slowly over years, but past injuries can speed things up. There’s another often overlooked culprit: diet. The typical American diet, loaded with sugar and unhealthy fats while lacking essential protein and healthy fats, creates a problem for your joints. This, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, accelerates the breakdown of cartilage that leads to arthritis.

The good news is you can take charge of your knee health! Here are some key strategies: First, fuel your body right. Embrace a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats. This provides the building blocks your joints need to stay strong. Second, move it or lose it! Regular exercise, even low-impact activities like walking or swimming, keeps your joints lubricated and mobile.

Remember, surgery is a last resort saved for severe cases. Explore conservative measures like diet, exercise, and PRP injections first. Supplements like glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate may also offer some relief, but make sure to opt for the sulfate form for better effectiveness. Chloride forms are cheaper, but doesn’t work well at all and may do too little. You will get more bang for your buck by choosing sulfate.

Finally, let’s not forget the hip-knee connection! Strong hips are essential for healthy knees. Maintaining good hip mobility and strengthening your gluteal muscles plays a crucial role in supporting your knees and lower back. Now that we’ve explored this connection, let’s delve into common hip problems you might encounter.

Hip impingement

Hip impingement is a condition that causes pain in the front of your hip, especially when you bend your hip joint (think bringing your knee to your chest). There are two main reasons why this might happen.

One possibility is the presence of extra bone growth, called calcification. This can develop on either the ball of your thigh bone (femur) or the rim of your hip socket (acetabulum). X-rays can diagnose this issue. If that’s the culprit, surgery can remove the extra bone and improve your hip mobility.

The other reason for hip impingement is a lack of space in the hip joint itself. This can happen due to the length or natural shape of your bones.

However, more often it’s caused by muscle imbalances. The most common culprit for muscle imbalance is lower cross syndrome, which is linked to desk work and long periods of sitting. This means the muscles in the front of your hip (hip flexors) and your lower back are chronically tight, while your glutes and core muscles are weak or inactive. This imbalance pulls your pelvis out of alignment and restricts the movement of your thigh bone in the socket, leading to pain.

Chiropractic adjustments are helpful in restoring proper joint mobility and alignment in your hip and pelvis. The effectiveness improves when paired with exercises and stretches to target the muscle imbalances. To intentionally tighten the weakened muscles, and stretch out the tight muscles. As you may guess, maintaining a few active recreational activities and going for a walk between long periods of sitting will help keep muscles balanced.

Overall, maintaining proper muscle balance and joint space is crucial for preventing and managing hip impingement.

Muscle Strain

Common muscle strains that we see are Hip Flexor and Adductor (groin) strains.  These are soft tissue injuries that are best treated conservatively with massage, exercise, and stretching.  Chiropractic adjustment to the lower back and ankle are important because as you are walking around with strained muscles, your body will tend to compensate. Compensation leads to readjustment of your movements that, overtime, will bring your body out of muscular alignment.

Labral tear

A labrum to the hip is like what the meniscus is to the knee. It is a structure that helps give stronger stability to the hip joint.  These can tear as well with trauma or overuse, the later is more common.  Like meniscus, this can be treated conservatively to prolong surgery as long as you would like, but surgical repair may be the best recommendation based on the severity and your daily activity levels that you want to maintain. After which, physical therapy is key to return to full function.  

As you can see there are few common themes here.  The hip plays a big part in knee health.  Muscle imbalances like the lower cross syndrome can be a leading cause for overuse injuries.  Chiropractic adjustments and Physical Therapy, such as proper stretching and strengthening is very important for rehab to these conditions.  

If you have been dealing with hip or knee pain and are still looking for answers, we would be happy to help you out.  Let us help you get back to those activities that you love!