How to fix knee pain

Knees are one of the most common areas to be treated with Prolotherapy and Prolozone Therapy. Along with the ankles and hips, they help to support the pelvis and spine during walking movements. Because of this, any change in the health of the knees can cause problems in other areas of the body.

To fully understand how the injections help knees, it is important to understand as much information as possible about the joint. Here is a list of what will be talked about in this article:

Why your knee isn’t getting better with other treatments.
Knee symptoms.
Common knee conditions that prolotherapy can help with.
Causes of knee pain.
Prolotherapy knee research.

We thought that you may want to watch a short video review first. Sue describes how the treatment helped her knee condition:

For more video reviews, head over to the review page of our website.

Why your knee isn’t getting better with other treatments

The knees have to bear a large portion of our bodyweight. As a result, they require a high degree of strength and stability to function.

The knee relies on strong muscles and ligaments to provide that stability. Due to their poor blood supply, ligaments don’t have the same ability to stay strong as much as muscles do.

A combination of previous injuries and age leads to ligaments becoming weak over time. This weakness leads to the knee becoming unstable and other structures having to work harder to the point they become injured.

For example, someone jars their knee by stepping off a curb that they didn’t realise was there. If the ligaments are weak, then that jarring movement can force the knee to move at an angle that it wasn’t designed to, and end up tearing one of the meniscus.

The deceiving thing is that in most cases this instability is too subtle for people to notice, until an injury occurs. Prolotherapy and Prolozone Therapy not only help to treat knee injuries, but also help to address the root cause of them by strengthening and stabilising the ligaments.

A lady in pain holding her knee

Knee symptoms

Pain – which can be dull or sharp in character.
Locking – often occurring when an individual starts moving after a period of inactivity.
Clicking – this can occur internally or externally.
Grinding – a typical sign of either rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis.
Weakness – inability to move or put weight through the joint.
Stiffness – either caused by tense muscles or by the pressure of inflammation in the joint.

Common knee conditions that Prolotherapy and Prolozone Therapy can help with

Osteoarthritis –

A condition that occurs when the cartilage starts to wear down between the joint surfaces as a result of repetitive friction. The bones then start to rub and can cause pain and inflammation.

Alongside providing a cushion between the joints, cartilage also helps to provide stability. Once the cartilage starts to wear, the knee can become unstable and put other structures under strain.

Our treatment can help knee osteoarthritis in two ways. It can help to promote cartilage growth, but it can also help to strengthen the surrounding structures that have come under strain.

Graphic of knee arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis –

Similar to osteoarthritis, the cartilage starts to wear down. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, the cartilage wears down due to an auto-immune condition. This is when the immune system attacks cartilage cells in the knee (and other joints) to the point that they start to degrade.

The treatment works similar to how it works with osteoarthritis. Alongside the injections, your practitioner will also provide dietary advice to help to reduce inflammation in the joints.

Meniscus tear –

An injury that normally results from an accident involving a twist in the knee. The menisci have a poor blood supply, so can struggle to heal by themselves or with physical therapy. The injections help to stimulate the healing compounds needed that aren’t being stimulated through a blood supply.

Ligament or tendon tears –

These structures also have a poor blood supply so the treatment helps to repair the tears in the same fashion as meniscus tears.

Bursitis –

This occurs when one of the bursa in the knee becomes irritated and inflamed. It is usually as a result of a fall onto the knee cap. The medical ozone component of Prolozone Therapy helps to reduce inflammation in a bursa.

Common causes

Trauma –

The most common types of trauma in the knee are associated with sporting accidents and falls onto the knee. The shock of these falls can cause tears in both internal and superficial structures of the knee.

A tennis player holding his knee needing prolotherapy

Misalignment –

The three most common areas of misalignment that effect the knee are in the foot, the pelvis and the knee cap.

Foot:

If the ligaments in the arch of the foot are weak, then it causes it to collapse. A collapsed arch causes a change in the angle of the lower leg bone (tibia), which then changes the angle of the knee. This is where the term ‘knock knee’ comes from.

If both arches have collapsed, then it causes the appearance shown in the below image. Our treatment can help to strengthen the arch of the foot to enhance the effects of the treatment on the knee.

Diagram of knock knee deformity

Pelvis –

If the pelvis is misaligned it can cause a slight difference in leg lengths. The result of this is an imbalance in body weight across each leg. Over time, the knee of the leg that bares more of the weight can end up with an injury or osteoarthritis.

Misalignments of the pelvis often occur as a result of limping from a previous injury or from one-sided repetitive activities. For example, a footballer that kicks the ball predominantly with their dominant foot. The action of swinging one leg repetitively, can cause the pelvis to misalign.

If you have a knee condition and your pelvis is misaligned, then we can prescribe specific exercises to address this alongside the injections.

Knee cap misalignment –

There are four muscles in the quadricep. They all attach into the knee cap at different angles. If one of these muscles is tighter than the others, then it can tug the knee cap out of alignment and start to cause problems. The clinical term for this is ‘patella mal-tracking.’ Massage and stretching techniques can help to address this condition.

Previous injuries –

These can cause scar tissue, weakness, and a change in the biomechanics of the knee. During each consultation and examination, your practitioner will ask about previous injuries. They will assess the knee accordingly to try and identify any unresolved problems that may be having an influence on your current knee condition.

The following video review is of a lady called Slyvia. She can into our clinic suffering from knee osteoarthritis and has experienced significant benefit from the treatment.