Patellar pain is a common issue in people who have active routines. However, most people don’t know how to deal with them properly. That results in severe pain and complete bed rest.
On the other hand, you can prevent the patellar pain by treating it on the time in the following ways:
1. Rest
If you are suffering from patellar pain, you should consider rest as your top priority in your daily routine. This issue is caused mainly due to excessive activities, such as jumping, running, walking, and several other such activities. At the same time, when you keep your knee in a misaligned way for an extended time, it can result in patellar pain.
While sleeping, you have to keep your body straight and place a pillow under your knee. You have to keep your knee a little higher than the rest of the leg. At the same time, your feet should lie straight on the bed or floor. This will decrease the chances of swelling and pain.
2. Relieving Medications
You should make an appointment with a physician who specializes in such treatment. They will first press different places on your knee to determine the exact spot that is damaged. For further precision, your knee will be passed through X-ray, MRI, and Ultrasound. In this, they can figure out the exact problem with your knee.
When you determine the exact issue, they will prescribe different medicines, such as ibuprofen and naproxen, that relieve you from the severe pain. However, medications are not a permanent solution for this issue. They can only relieve you for the time being. For a permanent solution, you have to consider surgery or physical therapy.
3. Physical Therapy
Along with medications you have to take for physical therapy. A physical therapist does several exercises to relieve the pain and correct the movement of your knee. Here are some of the most common exercises for the patellar pain:
- Stretching exercises involve the quadriceps stretch and hamstring stretch.
- Strengthening exercises include the isometric quad contractions and squats.
Moreover, the therapist recommends patellar straps to distribute the weight of your body and relieve the pain.
3. Surgery
If nothing relieves you from the patellar pain, your physician will go for the surgical procedures. They will remove the damaged cartilage and realign the knee. These surgical procedures include the following:
- In Arthroscopy, they will diagnose the leading cause of pain through camera insertion in knee. If it is the result of damage, they will remove that damaged part and graft new tissue through ACL surgery patellar tendon. On the other hand, if it is due to misalignment, surgeons will align them.
- Sometimes, the lateral retinaculum of the knee becomes too tight to allow movement. In such cases, they apply procedures to loosen it.
- The patella of the knee can also misalign due to high jumping. So surgeons have to correct its alignment through surgical procedures.
- In severe cases, the bone of the knee is broken. Then, they will remove the bone and then attach it again through screws.
