“He goes right, he turns left. Watch him bend back and move forward”,
Now that’s the sound of an active person if you asked me. Our bodies can handle to from 43.5 to 58 psi!
That’s a relatively large amount of force acting on even your most strong and fit joints. As much as being active is gods gift to giving you your greatest chance at a healthy body it can also be the most unforgiving reward.
An injury can send you down the beaten path in a split instant, and they often involve your knees, Ouchy!
Whether you played a scrimmage game of soccer, a pick up game of basketball with your friends, a round of golf with your co-workers, or even the lowest impact activities such as walking itself, the trickiest detail is isolating that stinking knee. Your knee needs you for literally everything, from bending to standing up. But just as prepared as you were not for your incident, you’ll be even more prepared the second time around.
You hear the words:
“dead ending”
…And you immediately think there’s no way around it or if I continue down that path I will not get anywhere. Well, not exactly true..
The sign might warrant you in the other direction, but have you ever stopped to really think and be optimistic about what can be done beyond that point?
How about a sign that reads:”keep trying, and you will find your way”. It’s common to ask your help when we’e stuck. Adopting this type of thinking will help out even the most daunting pain.
So where do you go from here? The first thing is to access your pain. If you’re feeling mild to moderate knee pain, without a doubt you can take your treatment to the luxury of your own home. Whether you developed a sprain or have ongoing arthritis, there will be several ways to cast the sunshine over your rainy parade.
Disclaimer: But before you gingerly walk off to treat your pain at home, you should be extremely cautious. If your pain is between the moderate and severe scale from the result of an injury, seek medical attention right away.
Some knee pain can immediately leave large tissue scarring trapping a numerous amount of fibrin to swell up your knee, and in result can require injury. In the most extreme causes of arthritis, surgery can be the right option. Make sure to see your doctor for a new experience in your knee pain after surgery.
Here’s where it gets interesting, and where 95% of people worldwide fall into. However, if the pain is due to:
- inflammation
- minor injury
- arthritis
- Back pain
… You can most definitely treat it at home with some most proven ways. You’ll want to read on for more information on how you can can treat your knee pain with alternative therapies and the supplements to ease your pain. Along with this, you will learn the following:
- Causes
- Knee and Back Pain
- Treatment
- How to stay beyond the beaten path
After all is said and done, you’ll have the right plan for your knee pain swelling treatment.
You’re about to learn the real causes of a bad knee.
Causes Of Your Knee Pain
The causes of your knee pain are divided into two categories:
- The most common(specific)
- The most uncommon(non-specific)
Or in other words, mechanical and inflammation…
&
Every 2 out of 3 people will report having a common knee problem. These would include:
- sprained ligaments
- tendinitis
- meniscus tears
- runner knee
… And if you’ve been dealing on and off with an old beat up knee injury that was not healed properly, it may flare up from time to time or just hurt all the time.
Some less common that come second to a knee injury, but only by the smallest margin are as follows:
- Dislocated kneecap. This happens when your knee slides out of position, causing immediate pain and swelling.
- Meniscus tear. At time a knee injury can cause tissue to tear and cartilage to rip. These rough edges will get stuck in the joint, which than cause both pain and swelling. Most people get the feeling of something “slipping” when they are active.
- Bursitis. Your bursa is a sac that holds small amounts of fluid under your skin but above your joint. It’ll help prevent friction as you go to move your joint. Everything from a fall, to overuse,and repeated bending and kneeling can irritate your burs sac on top of your kneecap. In return, you get a rush of pain and swelling.
- IT Bands syndrome. Your Illobital Band is(IT) is a piece of really tough tissue running from your hip down to outer parts of your knee. If you’re a person who likes or just loves to run, it’s coming from running downhill.
- Os-good schlatter disease. This is a phase when you’re young, and when bones and other parts of the knee are continuously adapting and changing. It’ll cause a painful bump below your knee at the point where your tendon from the kneecap connects to the shin. Irritation to the point on the bottom of your knee, and overdoing exercise will often make the area hurt. You’ll feel aches and pains come and go. This is most common in teenage boys and girls.
- Osteoarthritis. This is one word we hear of but rarely speak of for its confusions…The wear and tear sub level of arthritis. With an Osteoarthritis condition, it causes your knee joint to ache or swell as you’re participating in an activity. And as far as the stiffness that you get in your knee early in the day is caused by osteoarthritis. It is the #1 cause of knee pain in ages 50 and greater.
- Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome. Now we get around to latter components of non-specific pain. Muscle imbalances, tightness, and alignment issues in your legs usually trigger this condition. It;ll cause occasional knee pain and “buckling” meaning your knee(s) can’t bear your weight. This is not due to an injury, and is most common in women than men.
- Pattelar Tendinitis. A result of inflammation in your tendon that connects your kneecap to your shinbone. You’ll also hear it called “jumpers knee” because of constant jumping. When you overdo an exercise, your large tough bands of tendons become inflamed.
Sometimes you just can’t pre-plan a natural phenomenon. Your muscles and bones don’t need a ticket to invite themselves in, things just happen! Sadly, it doesn’t always take constant motion to trigger your knee pain, even the most delicate and slowest of motions can too.
Your Knee Pain And Your Lower Back, A DUET
Now that we’ve learned the causes, we’ll move right on into the treatments right? Hold it, wait a minute though, we missed one of the most important knee pain causes. Just about everything you thought you knew about your knee pain is probably wrong. Yes, but how?
So much of what you hear is based on two things:
- A surgery
- and old school impression of your Musculoskeletal system
Let’s turn the laser pointer over to your physician. Most physicians will spit out to you what they learned in medical school, but the bottom(and you’d have to scrap deeply) is that science of medicine is not only constantly changing but has jumped up much faster than we can keep up with it;
and these scientists we should be forever thankful for are finding less invasive ways to treat our ailments, and instead of masking away pain, are discovering the root of the cause.
Take that big pharma and your pain masking pharmaceuticals!…
An important thing I want you to understand is the difference between specific and non -specific pain. And if you’ve read across my other articles on these two types of pain, you’d know all about it. What hurts and you feel in your knee might not be the corporate, but get this:
A symptom of your problem.
There are two very important questions you have to ask yourself if you’re up to the task of preventing a couple extremes.
One being:
If your knee pain is not the result of a traumatic injury, than it’s time you ask yourself:
“What can it be”?
And two, the more targeted question would be:
“Are issues of my back causing my knee pain”?
A question like the last one asked will make the absolute difference in sadly getting a knee replacement, amputation of your knee joint and insertion of prosthetics in a very complicated surgical procedure.
By just asking and than following it up with acquiring the causes cam set you free from a life changing surgery
Your lower back region is a large complex structure. But you don’t have to worry, because it’s about to be broken down…not in a hurtful way, but in a way of words.
The lower back is made up of vertebrae or otherwise known as vertebral bodies. And in between these vertebral bodies are what are called “discs” that act as the “shock absorbers” between the vertebrae.
At each and every vertebrae level, there are spinal nerves that exit from the spinal cord on either side. But more specifically, in the lower back, in which they supply both extremities. In lower back mechanical, or spinal issues if you will, involve a herniated disc protruding into the back canal where your spinal nerves are.
A perfect example is what you’d see below:
Things like:
- bending over
- lifting
… Can both trigger pain down to your knees.
Have you heard about nerve irritation? If it’s sounds familiar to you, you’d know that lower back pain can cause nerve irritation or a compression of the spinal nerves that can lead to your hip, and the issues within the hip muscles(most likely your Sacroiliac joint) can trickle into hip and knee pain. It’s like an interconnected phone cord line that make contact with your knee any time it desires to dial.
Back Pain Linked to Knee Pain from Lee Health on Vimeo.
So is it just knee pain without the back pain? Not entirely because it’s not uncommon to have back pain with knee pain as well. One other thing to mention on the subject of hip pain is that if you have a weakness in muscles, it will reduce:
- Pelvic area
- Support
… And without a shadow of a doubt cause your lower back to hurt. Within the hip, it’s all about restrictions. That means when your hip joint can’t move in any given direction, it’ll cause further hip pain, and affect your knee to transform mechanically. Like back and knee pain, it’s common to have hip and knee pain firing at you together and at the same time.
After every cause, than enters through and out the shiny bright light, an “effect”.
Why do I have to get so “bright” about it though?
Well, there’s wrong ways to treat your pain, as there are even more right ways to go about it.
Your Treatment Lane To Recovering
If you’ve had your fair share of knee injuries, or more uncommon problems, than the beginning work will sound familiar. But if you haven’t, there’s no need to worry, we’ll get you caught up in a jiffy.
After you’ve twisted your knee, strained your knee, or have taken a large fall, it’s time to bring the first aid mobile out at home. The very first thing to speed to your mind should be the acronym “RICE” for treating sprains and strains.
1. RICE
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
Step 1:
- Immediately get your feet up off the ground, grab a cold pack of ice, and apply it to your knee. If you’re not equipped with a proper cold pack, a frozen bag of peas will be sufficient.
Step 2:
- Wrap your knee around a couple times with a compression bandage to stop your knee from swelling and causing further inflammation, therefore more pain.
Step 3:
- Elevate your leg on a flat and level surface while you take it easy and rest. Make sure you try to keep your knee-top up and not from turning over left and right or bending as this can aggravate your pain.
With just a 3 step process and icing properly, you’ll be feeling and moving around much better.
2. Exercise and Weight Management
Its proven that daily exercises can greatly reduce your knee joint pain, and it helps in letting our endorphins to alleviate you from pain. If you happen to have arthritis, you will need a specific plan of attack.
Don’t start off by increasing range in motion because that will stiffen your joint and make your matters worse. Instead, focus on keeping your leg straight and move in small ranges.
Then there is weight:
“The stray in the pack” tends to be the person with overbearing weight on the knee. I think we can all admit that sometimes we feel like we’re the superman to our kids, or the closest ones around us; and we think we can push through daily life without doing anything to help our knees get better.
But did you actually know, ignoring to treat your weight by doing absolutely nothing causes much more pain than if you were trying?
3. Find Your Tai Chi
The Chinese masterminds behind the practice of Tai Chi are arguably the closest thing to a miracle. Tai chi is an ancient Chinese form of “mind and body” exercise that will amazingly improve your”
- balance
- flexibility
If you don’t believe it, it’s best to have a look here if you’d like to. And if you’re osteoarthritis is the result of knee pain than you’ll greatly benefit from this practice. In a matter of minutes you can bet that you’ll feel a reduction in pain, and gain range in motion. You get taught a mental discipline that when you nail it down, you’ll be able to call the shots if chronic pain emerges out.
4. Heat and Cold Therapy
Using a heating pad can give you the best of both worlds:
- That “OOH AHH” feeling
- and comfort
But did you know its actual purpose?…
Heat is used to keep your knee joint from stiffening up, and the greatest factor is it brings rich nutrient blood flow to the area.
That’s the end of the start though, lets reverse engineer the process by steps.
Step 1:
- Ice your knee first to reduce swelling, pain, and inflammation.
Step 2:
- Ice every 15 minutes with about an hour rest without it for the next 24 hours.
Step 3:
- After the 24 hours, use a heating pad to keep your joint from stiffening up.
That’s how you would want to ice and heat, especially if it were coming from your lower back.
There’s two major difference between using a heating pad and just using a bath or a warm shower. Luke warm baths and showers will help relieve muscle tension and muscle spasms, while an actual heating pad is much more targeted and penetrates much more effectively through your tissue.
5. Herbal Remedies
Remember that “herbs will eliminate curbs”. What that means is that anything with a limitation or a constraint place on it, in this case your knee, doesn’t need to be. And that’s because of the reliving powers of herbs.
This is huge healing power that is way under the radar. Call it a ghost if you’d like. And that’s because you and many others don’t understand what they really are and what they can do. For one, they are so helpful because they can cure you from using Opioids and less narcotic painkillers like NSAIDs.
Most of the time your knee pain is the result of inflammation, and herbs will alleviate and in most cases prevent your knee pain from coming back.
These are some most common herb ingredients you need to take:
- Willow Bark. Among-st treating joint pain, fever, and inflammation, people with arthritis have found the greatest relief.
- Glucosamine and Chondotrin Sulfate. Glucosamine and Chondotrin sulfate are two miracle supplements that helped make more severe pain go away. They both work in conjunction to tackle osteoarthritis effectively as well.
- Ginger extract. You can find ginger in many forms, as you might have seen on the shelves of grocery stores. It can be purchased as a pre-packaged supplement within health stores or vitamin stores. Ginger root or tea is one you can use right now to treat your nagging knee pain.
==>Learn more about Herbs by clicking here.<==
6. Essential Oils
Knee pain is usually the result of inflammation or injury to the knee joint, but whichever one it is, Essential oils contain properties that can help alleviate your pain significantly. See, many essential oils have an “analgesic“(pain reducing) and anti-inflammatory properties that both can invite you to the healing and relief of a lifetime. But that’s if you do it the right way, the healthy way that is.
As a brief introduction, essential oils come in different chemical compounds that can give you anything from reduction in anxiety and depression, to pain release. They give you that numbing effect without the dangerous side effects you;d expect from drugs. There are essential oils with a cooling effect known as an analgesic, and others that have a warming effect which promotes blood circulation.
Combining the right amount of oils will be sure to keep your pain pined to the ground sort of speak. The following essential oil ingredients are the best for reliving pain and inflammation:
- Ginger. A root spice like we talked about can be found at your local grocery store in the shapes and forms of other substances. But did you know why you don’t run into any essential oils at your grocery store? That’s because it can be used externally on your skin. Ginger has anti-inflammatory properties that ease aching joints, and reduce muscle spasms all together. It helps just about every condition, but if you ave arthritis you will benefit greatly as it can soothe your symptoms.
- Peppermint. Have you ever smelled anything peppermint, and did you like it? This pleasant scent will help with your aching joints and muscular pain.
- Lavender. Lavender has both analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties used for helping aching joints, and relieving achy muscles. And best of all, it helps calm your mind and body.
==>Click Here to learn more about Essential Oils<==
7. Try A Patch
Way before your knee begins to swell, and before you receive any form of physical limitation, you’ll get a large call back from your brain. when you hurt your knee, your brains receptors get an immediate response, and signal it into your fight or flight response. How does this happen?
There’s a large, and I mean meters of what’s known as the sciatic nerve, that runs from your neck all the way down to the top of your knee. And if it get’s hit, it’ll trigger a common pain signal to your brain. That’s where a patch like ActiPatch can come into the rescue.
What this patch does so well is it uses rapid pulsing electromagnetic waves at a low enough amplitude so you do not feel them, but high enough that you get the benefits.
If you have chronic pain, you know far too well how it can keep you from being involved in activities. It’s not all about the pain, but what it prevents you from doing. The awesome thing about is:
- No use of drugs
- No use of creams
- No electrical shocks
My favorite part about it is that it’s the preferred method over a TENS machine.Here are a couple videos of it:
If you'd like to learn more about this patch, click here: ActiPatch
How To Stay Beyond The Beaten Path
Nothing goes away overnight, but it can over time. Just like that saying goes, you should take the same analogy and approach it with effort. Your joints can feel better after one day, but it needs to take constant repetition and habits to get back the best you.
I want to elaborate on points 5 and 6 above(Herbs and essential oils). There's some uncertainty in the midst of moving around because one move can cause your knee joint to swell once more, Oh gosh!
What if you could use herbs and essential oils to stand up and do something about why you can't:
- walk
- exercise
- do your daily task
The combination of the two remedies have the most potent and potential to not only fight off your inflammation, but greatly reduce your swelling. When you use both in sync, it will make walking more enjoyable, activities less strenuous, and responsibilities less provoking.
Let me motion you into why I don't struggle with both knee pain, and any lower back pain. For 3 years now, I've greatly reduced my worries along with inflammation and creating a more well-rounded healthier me with the use of Penetrex Pain Relief Cream.
Over the use of one day, I excessively reduced and made my:
- Lower back pain
- Knee pain
- never pain
Go away completely. And after one week of use, I ran into less inflammation. About a month and a half, I remember it being the month of July, I was not dependent on using it 3 times a day, only once every 4-5 days. Its truly incredible how this gem is way below our treatment.
>>Read more about Penetrex here<<.
Joint Pain Supplements:
Besides using a product unlike penetrex, I do need something that can work from the inside out. What better way than supplementing it? When you use a supplement you get 3 important things:
- Better absorption
- More powerful
- Makes you stronger
In the lowest and most extreme cases with lower back pain, I turn to supplements that have the main ingredient turmeric.
It's rich in anti-inflammatory properties, and reduces your want for hunger, thus helping you eliminate unwanted weight, reducing stress on your back and knee. For knee pain, I would recommend one with high amounts of curcumin-an enzyme that promotes there to be less inflammation, and accelerates the healing of your knee. You learn more about thebest joint supplements right here.
Your Knee Pain Will Test You, But It Will Not Trap You
You've had a chance today to learn about how at any time, whether you're playing a pick up game of basketball with your friends, hitting the gold course for a round of golf, or even the lowest impact activities can tire out your knee.
The most common case of a knee problem is a large injury, and by the slightest second place is uncommon issues such as dislocated kneecaps, Bursitis, IT Band syndrome, Os-good shclatter disease, Osteoarthritis, Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, and Pattelar Tendinitis. But that was not all.
Lower back pain is the other corporate. The nerves in your lower back can get triggered by that of a herniated disc(disc protrusion) that grinds against your nerve to bring pain signals into your hips and from your hips to your knee.
With ever cause there is an effect, and each one is a great way to treat and manage your knee pain, especially with the magical remedies of herbs and essential oils. And last but definitely not the least, you heard about why there;s nothing that can help your knee and joint pain and at the same time let you do everything else to strengthen, then without a cream like Penetrex.
If you have anything you'd like to comment about, have a question for, an opinion, or something you'd like to add on, please leave me a comment. I'll get back to you right away!
Very interesting and informative article! So many people have experienced knee pain and swelling. You have some very good points in how to relieve symptoms which are the herbs,ice,essential oils and most importantly getting some rest which helps repair the knee itself and eventually will make a cure. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Carmeta,
I’m glad you found it to be that way. Way too many people in the world are suffering immensely with knee pain and swelling, that it’s becoming one of the top health related problems. Yes, herbs are a great addition to help with swelling naturally. They take away the use of having to go the traditional medication route like so many people are held onto. Essential oil nearly provide the similar benefits with the additions of relieving neurological receptors from the great smell. Ice is an immediate action, and it works well at bringing down swelling, but it’s important to use the right pack or cooling method. You are very welcome!
Very interesting articles I had back pain and it wasn’t my back at all it moved to my hip and knees I had a chiropractor look at it and a CAT scan the usual wear and tear and aging was a factor otherwise good health I ended up getting in soles from my podiatrist and bingo back pain gone took a month to notice the difference and to adjust to walking out of old habits I really learnt a lot from reading your website Thank you
Hi Angelique,
That’s usually how back pain will get you, it’s almost never a mechanical(specif to your spine) pain that you get(unless from injury), and it does cream from the lower trunk of your body such as you mentioned, the hips and knees. There are also the hamstrings, buttocks and much more sub parts that take advantage of hurting your lower back. Oh really? At least you can take solace in that it was not a major complicated issue. I’m glad that you got yourself some soles from your podiatrist, they are good for you, and help stabilize and reduce the pressure on your knees and hips. I’m happy to hear! Thank you very much.