On having knee pain, people will commonly say "My knee hurts. It must be old age, I guess".
Arthritis does set in from the wear and tear from aging but you don't even have to be old to have knee pain. With normal aging or accelerated aging due to trauma, the cartilage that is inside the knee joint wears out. When there is associated nerve related tightness and shortening of the muscles that surround the knee joint, the thigh bone and the leg bones that make up the knee joint have more chances to grate against each other, exacerbating the knee pain.
The strong muscles that pass across the knee and affect knee function mainly come from above the hip. Therefore in treating knee pain, local treatments focused to the knee may not be enough especially if the pain and discomfort does not improve with local treatments. Thus, conservative treatments should be performed first before using invasive procedures such as surgery since the knee pain may be stemming from nerve related muscle conditions.
The main muscles responsible for knee pain are as follow: Gluteus maximus (S1) and tensor fascia lata muscles (L5) through the iliotibial band. When these muscles are in pain, there will be pain on straightening the knee.
When the hamstrings (L5 and S1) muscles are very tight and short due to pain and spasm, there will be knee pain with straightening of the knee from contraction of the quadriceps muscles.
Pain and spasm of the quadriceps (L3, L4) muscles will produce knee pain on straightening the knee. In patients with knee pain, it is thus important to examine and treat as appropriate muscles supplied the L3 through S1 spinal nerve roots in the limbs as well as in the lower back.
When treating the back muscles, it is essential to treat on the spinal muscles from the neck down to the base of the spine as well as the latissimus dorsi (C6, C7).
http://technorati.com/tag/knee+pain
http://technorati.com/tag/arthritis
© 2007 copyright http://www.stopmusclepain.com
No comments:
Post a Comment