Muscle & Knee Pain Treatments

Unfortunately, many people suffer from muscle and knee pain. The pain can be brought on by many different causes: there can be injuries, weight issues, muscle and joint problems, or a number of other causes. Many different treatments are available to help with pain in the knees and muscle pain associated with it. There are medications, exercises, and therapeutic treatments. If one treatment doesn't work, a combination might be helpful.

Pain Medication Treatments

• For pain and discomfort, many times your doctor may prescribe a pain medication or have you take a pain relief medication that is available over the counter. Tylenol and Ibuprofen are common over-the-counter medicines to treat pain and discomfort. Ibuprofen is also known to reduce inflammation. This can be beneficial for joint pain and swelling due to arthritis. It also helps to give relief from bursitis, fibromyalgia, or any type of muscle strain. If the muscles tend to spasm as well, your doctor may prescribe a muscle relaxer to calm the muscle.

  There are also herbal medicines that can help with joint and muscle pain. One in particular is Joint Health. Joint Health helps to alleviate pain, stiffness, and inflammation. It consists of turmeric, ginger, garlic, and winter cherry. There is a combination of other herbs in Joint Health that promote joint flexibility and soothing effects to sore muscles and knee pain.

Physical Therapy

• Physical therapy is beneficial to many people with muscle and knee pain. Several medical conditions can cause knee and muscle pain and may require physical therapy. A physical therapist may use heat to soothe and heal muscles and joints. Heat also helps to increase your range of motion. Range of motion exercises are also used to help keep muscles and knee joints mobile and flexible. These might include extension exercises for the knee, along with hyperextension, flexion, abduction and adduction exercises. Many exercises are geared toward strengthening the knee, the surrounding muscles, and conditioning them so that knee pain is diminished. If your pain causes weakness in the knee and affects your coordination, your therapists will work with coordination skills too. Whirlpool and heat-pack treatments are also used in physical therapy to aid in relaxation of the muscles, and eliminate knee pain.

Surgery

• Depending on the injury or problem, there may be a need for surgery. The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, which are two ligaments that cross over the top of the knee to keep it from hyperextending, sometimes tear in a knee injury. If this happens there is no chance of the ligaments healing on their own.These types of problems require surgery to relieve the pain in the knee and the muscles around it. There is also the possibility of a torn meniscus. This also creates pain for the knee and surrounding muscles and is repaired by surgery. There are other injuries to the knee that can affect the level of pain you have in your knee and muscles, such as ruptured tendons, knee fractures, and tendonitis in the knee. Many of these problems do require surgery to ultimately relieve the pain.