Knee Pain Treatment without Surgery

Are you suffering from knee pain? If so, you may be experiencing some stiffness in your knees, pain and swelling, general weakness, you may hear popping sounds, or your knees may be giving out? These are all signs that you may be suffering from chronic knee pain.

Knee pain can occur for a wide range of reasons such as knee injury, osteoarthritis, pаtеllоfеmоrаl раіn syndrome, bursitis, and many others. Since there are so many potential causes of knee pain, a good knee pain doctor or interventional pain specialist will diagnose the root cause of knee pain before treating it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to chronic pain in the knees, most people opt for one of two terrible options — surgical or narcotic treatments.

Surgeries were the favored treatments for chronic pain in the past and they’re still promoted by some doctors — however, surgical procedures for knee pain are largely ineffective and they carry a high risk of complications. As such, you must avoid knee surgeries.

You should also avoid narcotic treatments or chronic pain specialists who rely solely on opioid management. Narcotics may provide pain relief in the short term, but they don’t address the underlying root cause of knee pain. As such, once the narcotic wears off, your knee pain returns worse than before. The over-reliance on opioids for knee pain has thrown the US into an opioid crisis. So you should completely avoid narcotic treatments.

Thanks to modern medicine, interventional pain specialists can treat chronic pain and knee pain with minimally invasive and non-surgical procedures that cause minimal pain and discomfort and are completely safe. In this article, we’ll discuss the best knee pain treatment without surgery.

Diagnosis of Chronic Pain

When you visit an interventional pain specialist for your chronic knee pain, they’ll carefully diagnose the root cause of your knee pain. This will be done through various physical tests, imaging tests, and lab tests.

Physical Examination

The knee pain doctor will physically examine your knees in the following ways:

• Check for swelling, bruising, tenderness, or warmth in your knees.
• Check your knee’s mobility.
• Examine the integrity of the bone structure by pulling and pushing the knee joint.

Imaging Examination

Following the physical examination, the knee pain doctor will run some imaging tests such as X-Ray scans, CT scans, ultrasound tests, and MRI scans. These methods will help the doctor visualize your knee joint and structure so they can diagnose bone problems, fractures, or detect any degenerative disease. This helps them identify the root cause of chronic pain.

Lab Tests

Your chronic pain may be a result of inflammation or infection as well. To identify them, the doctor will run some blood tests and extract some fluid from your knee joint to examine them for anomalies.

Conservative Treatments for Chronic Pain

Chronic pain treatment generally starts with conservative treatments. The following is a brief description of the conservative treatments your knee pain doctor may recommend.

RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation)

RICE is a home remedy in which you take some rest, apply ice packs on the injured or affected region, wrap an ACE bandage for compression, and elevate your knees. This will provide some relief from knee pain.

Physical Therapist Session

The knee pain doctor may also recommend a physical therapist who will work on some movements and exercises to help you regain mobility in your knees.

Nonsteroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)

NSAIDs are anti inflammatory drugs that can provide immediate relief from chronic pain, fever, inflammation, or other issues caused by the knee injury, disease, or infection. You should, however, stick to the dosage recommended by the doctor.