Osteoarthritis of the knee

Osteoarthritis is common and highly treatable. For most people, it doesn't simply get worse and worse. The treatment with the strongest evidence isn't a scan or an injection. It's a healthy combination of exercise, weight management, pain medication and activity modification. Working with me will involve a comprehensive plan that gets your knee moving and strong again.

 

Like skin, the cartilage in the joint begins to gradually change as we get older.  Age is one of many factors that contribute to why and how our cartilage ages. Previous injuries, how little you exercise, how much body fat you have and genetic make-up have a large influence. As the cartilage thins we can sometimes get bony formation as a possible protective response.  It's a very slow process, but over the course of many years it might start to cause swelling, pain or stiffness at the joint. 'Osteoarthritis' is the medical name for when one of these joints does happen to become painful. osteo· meaning bone, and arthritis· meaning joint swelling.

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It sounds scarier than it is because we immediately think of people we know who have knee replacements. For scale, the UK does around 100,000 knee replacements a year, compared to the millions of people diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis. It's comforting to hear that exercise seems to slow the rate of osteoarthritis. We have all heard of wear and tear from exercises, but it's becoming more evident that this is somewhat misleading. A recent study found that people who did regular running had LESS osteoarthritis in their knees than those who were not active at all.