This article was written by Support

Lately you start to notice that your knees have been hurting even though you haven’t made any changes to your normal routine. If you find that, especially upon waking in the morning, your knees hurt or feel stiff you maybe suffering from arthritis knee! The very word “arthritis” may conjure up an image in your mind of an elderly person with a cane having trouble walking but I can assure you that is a common misconception about the disease. Anyone of any age can be afflicted with arthritis yet much about the disease itself is still largely unknown.

Arthritis knee carries a few common symptoms where all or only a few of them are experienced and in different variations from patient to patient. Some of them include pain, stiffness of the knee, inflammation of the joint, limited range of motion and a feeling that your knee may “give out”. In more severe cases the knee may be afflicted with deformities such known as “knock knees” or “bow-legged”.Because arthritis is a disease that progresses over time, you may have never felt any of these symptoms up until this point in your life and even still it can tend to come and go. Eventually though, in most cases the arthritis knee will only get worse and care should be taken.

Arthritis knee, commonly known as osteoarthritis, is a degenerative disease that gradually wears down the cartilage in the knee over time. The disease advances to the point where eventually the joint no longer has the cushion of the cartilage and therefor becomes bone on bone. This can cause pain, inflammation and in some cases, deformity of the knee. Typically arthritis knee is associated with patients who are overweight, have suffered some type of knee trauma or have continually used their knees aggressively such as athletes. It has also been thought that some patients are genetically predispositioned to the disease although this has yet to be proven.

Interestingly enough, even though arthritis is a disease that typically progresses and gets worse over time, some patients claim to have good months and bad months. For whatever reason, the inflammation tends to flare up in some patients only some of the time. The reason behind this characteristic is yet another mystery! One thing is for sure though, the more active a patient is the less the arthritis tends to be a bother. You would think that the more activity an arthritic knee gets the more pain it would cause yet it seems to be the other way around.

The good news is, if you are suffering from arthritis knee you have plenty of options to choose from in terms of care. Vitamins, anti-inflammatory medications, therapy, cortisone shots and even activity modification can prove to be a great alternative to surgery, which is available for those with more severe cases. Talk to your doctor to find out what avenue may be best for you to take with regard to the severity of your case.