Knee injuries, whether as a result of a sports accident or from a simple miscalculation in the performance of your day-to-day activities, can be very difficult to deal with. The pain from such injuries can be so debilitating that it keeps you from doing the things you love. Fortunately, medical science provides patients with ways to treat knee injuries and return to living their lives as if the injury never even occurred.
The Knife is Not Your Only Option
It is without doubt that a number of knee injuries are untreatable without some sort of surgery, but whenever possible, patients should seek out non-surgical remedies before they make the choice to go under the knife. The reason for this stems from the nature of a surgical procedure.
Despite how it is used to repair injuries within the body, surgery is a destructive process—tissue is first destroyed in order to conduct the repair. After surgery, the body is put under strain to repair not just the original injury, but also the additional injury sustained as result of the cutting and pulling involved in the surgical process. This can drastically lengthen recovery times, and lowers the chance of complete success.
Instead of surgery, patients with knee pain in Bergen County can turn to treatments like Hyalgan injections combined with physical therapy to achieve both relief and long-term healing for their pain. Whichever you choose, however, remember that, while doctors do a lot to remedy the problem, patients also have a responsibility to manage their recovery afterward.
There’s more to Exercise than Getting Stronger
Getting plenty of rest used to be an important part of the treatment recovery process for knee pain sufferers. In fact, it stands for the first letter of the acronym RICE, or rest, ice, compression, and elevation—the four elements of treating soft tissue injuries.
Today, however, better knowledge of how the body works has seen the R component dropped out of the acronym. Most doctor’s ban total rest as part of knee pain treatment regimens, and instead, advise patients to get plenty of exercise.
However, the goal of exercise in treating a knee injury isn’t to strengthen the muscles around it. Instead, the injured joint is usually kept isolated while other parts of the body are vigorously exercised. This encourages the release of natural endorphins, testosterone, and adrenaline that promote the body’s natural ability to heal itself.
Of course, any exercise regimen undertaken as part of knee pain treatment in Bergen County should only be done so with the help of a qualified physician, like Dr. Ali Maxandarani from MedWell Spine, OsteoArthritis & Neuropathy Center. Otherwise, improper exercise might actually see any improvement to the injury derailed.
(Source: How to Reduce Knee Pain Without Surgery, HuffPost Healthy Living, July 14, 2014)
