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These Factors May be Contributing to Your Knee Arthritis

These Factors May be Contributing to Your Knee Arthritis

Your knees are becoming increasingly achy and stiff, and you realize that you may be joining millions of others with knee osteoarthritis. If you want to fight back, there are some steps you can take to slow or halt the condition.

Your knees just aren’t what they used to be — you wake up with stiff knees and go to bed with achy ones. The odds are good that you’ve joined millions of others with knee osteoarthritis (KOA), a condition that has doubled in prevalence over the past 50-75 years.

While this form of arthritis is degenerative, which means it can get progressively worse, there are steps that you can take to halt or slow the progression of KOA.

Here at Spine & Orthopedic Center, Dr. Rajiv Sood and the team specialize in musculoskeletal issues, and arthritis certainly accounts for its fair share.

While there’s much that we can do to improve your mobility and comfort when you have KOA, it’s important to understand any conditions or actions on your part that may be exacerbating the disease. Let’s take a look.

Your risk factors for knee osteoarthritis

It used to be that most people assumed osteoarthritis was only found among the older population. This statement has a good deal of truth as age is no small risk factor for OA, also called a wear-and-tear disease, but it’s not the only factor.

Outside of age, people with the following conditions can experience premature, and more impactful, KOA:

Carrying extra weight

Your joints are designed to carry a certain amount of weight that’s based on your height and the size of your bones. If you carry too many pounds, much of the burden falls on major joints like your knees to support the excess weight.

As a result, the cartilage inside your knees can break down more quickly, which is at the heart of osteoarthritis.

A sedentary life

Joints like your knees are designed to move — in fact, their health depends on it. When your knees move, your body registers the activity and ensures that resources are sent to the joints to keep them healthy.

If you lead a sedentary joint, your body ceases to send reparative and regenerative resources to your knees, and the health of tissues like cartilage decline rapidly.

A lack of support

Another problem with leading a sedentary lifestyle is that you’re not strengthening the muscles surrounding your knees, such as your quads, hamstrings, and calf muscles. These major muscles can offer a good deal of support to your knees.

Old injuries

If you injured your knee in the past and it didn’t heal well, you’re at risk for developing post-traumatic arthritis, essentially KOA. This underscores the importance of coming to see us for knee injuries so that we can help the joint to heal healthy and strong.

Treating arthritis in your knees

The best way to restore pain-free knee movement is to see us for a full evaluation. If we confirm KOA, we review your risk factors and determine areas where you can make impactful changes for better joint health.

As we mentioned earlier, we can do our part to help strengthen your knees and keep you more comfortable with the following:

  • Physical therapy
  • Joint injections
  • Regenerative medicine
  • Orthotics
  • Medications

To get on the road to healthier knees, please contact our Jonesboro, Georgia, office to schedule an appointment.