Dealing with a new knee injury
The first thing I recommend doing if you think you have injured your knee is to get a proper assessment. I can help you if you are looking for a sports medicine oriented chiropractor or physiotherapist in Vernon, BC.
Sometimes, though, getting in to see someone you trust can be a challenge. Your chiro doesn’t have an opening, your physio is off, or your athletic trainer is busy. It is helpful to have some strategies to manage your knee injury in the meantime.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you have severe swelling, heard a pop/snap followed immediately by pain, or you have any reason to suspect it is fractured, you need to get an x-ray as soon as possible. Visit your local emergency room or urgent clinic.
ACUTE knee pain just means that you had a recent injury that might be responsible for your pain. A slip and twist, or a fall and catching yourself. Even just a long day of skiing or hiking hard can lead to an incident of acute knee pain.
When a patient comes to me with acute knee pain, we have 3 goals:
Limit or reduce swelling
Maintain active range of motion
Preserve muscle mass and strength, especially in the quads (front of the thigh)
Managing Swelling
Swelling leads to pain and stiffness, which usually leads to inactivity, which always leads to loss of muscle mass and strength. So in essence, managing swelling is already starting to accomplish the other two goals.
Here is how we manage swelling with acute knee pain:
Keep the joint in motion as often as possible within pain-free (or manageable pain) range of motion. Keeping the ankle and hip moving is also helpful in pumping out swelling.
Elevation to take advantage of gravity to clear swelling
Compression to increase clearing of fluid and limit swelling
VIDEOS:
Maintaining Range of Motion
Motion is the lotion. You don’t use it, you lose it. Same same. We want to keep moving as much as possible, within reason, immediately following injury. That might mean you are literally moving your knee joint 5 degrees, or your knee doesn’t even move but you are pumping your ankle through range of motion. Do as much as you can within PAIN-FREE RANGE (or at least tolerable pain).
Here are the exercises I recommend to my patients to maintain range of motion:
Quad Sets
Passive Range of Motion
Maintaining Strength and Muscle Mass
The key to maintaining muscle mass after an injury is: movement and nutrition. If left immobilized, the leg muscles can atrophy (i.e. shrink) by ~5% in a single week. Atrophy tends to slow over time (since there is less muscle to waste away), but it is not uncommon to have upwards of 15% muscle loss in a month of mobilization. That is a big deal.
Here are the first things we do to prevent as much muscle mass and strength loss as possible:
Nutrition:
Immediately increase protein consumption. Your body NEEDS protein to heal your injuries, and even though your activity level may decrease, your protein needs often INCREASE
Avoid highly inflammatory foods whenever possible (even though I know how tempting it is to finish that pint of ice cream to cope with the frustration)
Isometrics or low-load movements - keep the injured joint moving as often as possible with as much stress as you can handle.
Isometrics: activates the muscle without moving the joint through range of motion, and is often tolerable even when in a lot of pain
End range limited range of motion exercises like Quad sets
Contralateral leg training: i.e. exercising with the OPPOSITE limb can actually maintain both muscle mass and strength (pretty cool, eh?)
Exercise for Acute Knee Pain:
Not sure where to start?
That is where a qualified Chiropractor or Physiotherapist in Vernon, BC can help. A good Chiro or Physio will put you through a thorough assessment and help identify the extent of your injury and your pain triggers. Then, they will help you put together a rehab plan to get you back in action.
Author: Dr Mark Murdoch, Chiropractor and Co-Founder at Base Camp Sport and Spine in Vernon, BC.
Mark Murdoch is a Doctor of Chiropractic with a Master’s Degree in Sports Medicine.
Contact: drmurdoch@basecampclinic.com
Book an Appointment with Dr Murdoch: book here
Instagram: Base.Camp.Doc