A Chiropractor Can Help with Knee Pain

When you hear chiropractor, you often think of back or neck pain. But a chiropractor can also help with knee pain. Knee pain is a common complaint, with over 50% of Americans experiencing knee pain at some point in their lives. Understanding where your knee pain is coming from and what it means for your overall health are important steps in finding relief from it. Knee pain can have a serious impact on your quality of life. 

In this article we’ll discuss what causes knee pain and where it comes from; what can a chiropractor do to help? 

What causes knee pain?  

The knee is made up of complex bones, ligaments, and tendons that support the joint and allow for movement. If these structures become inflamed or injured, they can cause pain and swelling in the joint area. Knee pain can be caused by overuse — such as running or jumping — or by trauma to the joint during an accident, or by arthritis.  

Overuse. If you spend too much time on your feet or doing other activities that put stress on your knees, it can cause damage over time. This is especially true for athletes and other active people who are putting extra stress on their knees by performing repetitive movements with their legs (such as squats).  

Injury. A major injury such as a torn ligament or meniscus can cause long-term damage to your knee joint and lead to chronic pain in the future.  

 Inflammation. Inflammation can cause swelling and stiffness, which makes moving around difficult and painful for some people. Inflammation can be caused by injury but also by conditions like arthritis, tendinitis, or bursitis (when fluid builds up around certain muscles). 

Where does knee pain come from?  

 The most common causes of knee pain are stress fractures, meniscus tears, and ACL tears. These injuries can happen during physical activity or when we're not active at all; they're most often caused by repetitive stress on the joints over time. Since our knees bear much of our weight as we walk around all day long, they're especially susceptible to injury if we don't take proper care of them through exercise, stretching, and good nutrition. 

Knee pain can be felt in many different areas around your knee joint. The most common areas are: 

The front of the knee (anterior portion). This is where patellar tendinitis occurs when there is irritation of the tendon that attaches to your kneecap (patella). If this tendon becomes inflamed, it can result in pain behind or beneath the kneecap as well as swelling and tenderness directly over top of it. 

The side of the knee (lateral portion). This area is where iliotibial band syndrome occurs when there is inflammation in this tendon located along the side. 

What can a chiropractor do to help?  

While there are many treatment options available to help relieve knee pain, one of the most effective is chiropractic care provided by an experienced chiropractor. A chiropractor will evaluate your range of motion in your knees and determine whether or not there's an issue with one or both knees – or if the problem is actually being caused by another area like your hips or low back.  A chiropractor is trained to treat a wide variety of conditions that affect your joints, muscles, and spine—and most importantly, they treat all of these areas as one unit instead of just treating one symptom at a time like traditional medicine does. 

Chronic knee pain is so often treated with surgery which includes risk and does not have guaranteed results. Here at the Active Spine & Joint Institute, we prefer to use cutting-edge, non-surgical treatments in our Active Knee© Program to free you from pain & get you active again - even if you are “bone on bone”. So if you think you would benefit from a consultation about our Active Knee© Program, give our office a call at 609-886-8585 to set up a consultation.