Effective Ways to Tackle Your Knee Pain
Knee pain arises when you overuse your knee or suffer some form of trauma. In addition to everyday strains, you can experience it due to sports injuries and accidents. When the pain arrives, there are a few ways to tackle it.
Resting Effectively
Resting effectively gives the muscles supporting your knee an opportunity to heal. How much you'll need to rest and what you'll need to do while resting will depend on the cause and severity of the pain. If there is local inflammation, elevating your knee encourages blood to flow away from the area and prevents fluids from gathering there. With less fluid in the area, you'll experience less pressure against your nerve endings and experience a reduction in pain. You may also want to try hot and cold therapies. While a warm compress stimulates blood flow that promotes healing, a cold compress or ice in a towel will reduce inflammation further.
Shockwave Therapy
Shockwave therapy for knee pain is particularly effective for patellofemoral syndrome, tendonitis, and the type of pain that comes with sports injuries. Using a handheld tool, your clinician will deliver shockwaves to your knee over a series of a few sessions. In some cases, shockwave therapy alone is enough to promote healing and return you to a pain-free life. However, many people use it as a pain reduction technique that allows them to progress with physiotherapy. Physiotherapy aims to return the muscles and tendons surrounding your knee to an everyday usable state. By using shockwave therapy to make physiotherapy less painful, you're more likely to engage and can reduce your healing time.
Everyday Analgesics
Everyday analgesics such as paracetamol and ibuprofen can act as short-term forms of pain relief that you're in control of. Paracetamol acts on the pain signals that reach your brain and can make everyday tasks and sleeping easier. In contrast, ibuprofen acts on the inflammatory messaging signals that cause swelling to occur. Talk to your doctor about using the two types of pain relief together. They may advise that you alternate between them so that when one wears off the other one starts to become effective. When using analgesics, always follow the correct dosage and speak to your doctor for further advice if they're not proving effective.
Overall, you may want to try several forms of pain relief to make life easier. When you have less pain, returning to your former functions becomes much easier. Contact a medical professional to get more tips on knee pain treatment.