How To Treat Knee Pain?

Hello,

I am Dr. Kailash Kothari, Pain Management Specialist. We treat every type of pain and maximum patients are coming to us with knee, back and neck pain. So, today I will tell you about knee pain. So many patients are visiting the hospital because of knee pain and not only old but young people are also suffering from knee pain. The knee is the part of the body which works continuously during the regular walk, running, frequent sitting and then getting up from the place, sitting on the floor with folded legs. This causes strain to ligaments, muscles and cartilage. In our knee, we are having 3 types of joint: femur, tibia and fibula. A part in the knee is patella. Patella, we call vatti in marathi and katori in hindi. Patella is a muscle which slides over the knee joint and helps us in bending knee. So many things are there in the knee which can affect our knee badly. Injury to patella can cause arthritis, friction and inflammation.

The types of ligaments in our knee: ACL and PCL. These ligaments control flexion and extension of the knee while bending and straightening the leg. In the knee, between 2 bones, there is a meniscus which functions as a cushion to the knee. Apart from these, there is a quadriceps muscle which is a group of 4 muscles which holds the knee from the front and hamstring muscle which supports knee from the back. We also have muscles at the sides of the knee.

Many types of problems are there which affect knee and maximum patients are coming to us for osteoarthritis. As we get older, our ligaments, muscles, cartilage start getting weak and thin. This may result in the swelling of the knee and it gives problem at the time of the knee or leg movement. At an older age, the patient is not able to fold his legs. They suffer from problems while sitting, getting up, walking. In such situations, the patient takes anti-inflammatory medicines which only reduce the swelling. By taking these anti-inflammatory medicines, the regeneration of cells in the knee gets reduced. For that particular time, the patient gets relief and able to do all the activities but these medicines are not at all good for knee. So, we stimulate the regeneration of the cells at the time of the treatment. For this, the therapy is called prolotherapy. This therapy helps our body in increasing cells capacity. This treatment is called dextrose prolotherapy.

We prepare a combination of dextrose and local anesthesia and inject the same into the knee. This is 100% side-effect free treatment. This procedure stimulates our body tissues, cartilage, ligaments, muscles and this also reactivates the synovial fluid which gets dried in osteoarthritis patients. Prolotherapy is the only way to recreate the cells and strengthen our muscles, ligaments, cartilages. This gives stability to your joint. 30-40% of patients are coming to us to get rid of osteoarthritis and till date, we have given successful results to over 1000 patients. Now they are able to do their regular activities and avoided knee surgeries successfully.

We also have many patients who are in sports. Mostly we have seen that sportsmen are getting more affected with knee injuries as they do physical activities. There is a knee problem in sportsmen and we call it runner's knee. Sometimes our ligaments get twisted into the knee which causes pain. In such cases, prolotherapy helps to proliferate the normal cells, strengthen the muscles, ligament. If we will not keep our knee strengthen then it will cause instability which causes the problem to the patient in walking, running and routine activities. This treatment is not for the short term. People who play cricket, basketball, football can suffer from ligament injury or ACL & PCL tear and sometimes meniscal tear. This is a problematic situation in which if the patient straightens his legs, the knee gets locked and it becomes impossible for the patient to bend it again. We call this lock knee. It becomes difficult for us to pull the same back.

It also happens when our ligament gets damaged and we are able to move tibia, this is called instability of the joint. This instability causes pressure over the bones and also it creates osteophyte to create the new bone formation. Due to this new bone formation, our knee gives more pain. The best part of the treatment is that it gives you pain-free life for the longest time and makes the knee more stable. We repair the ligaments and cartilage with the help of prolotherapy. We stimulate the cells so as to build cartilage or fibrous tissues. This is the very common treatment which is not done pan India. We are known for this prolotherapy in India. These details can be found online and it has lots of successful evidence also. There is another therapy called PRP which helps in regenerating our tissues but for this dextrose prolotherapy is equally important and we treat the patient with both the therapies. Combination of these therapies gives better results.  If you want to know more about this, contact me through Lybrate.

Thank You.