Cause Behind Knee Pain

Pain Behind the Knee

Pain behind the knee aka posterior knee pain can be due to a number of problems. Sometimes is develops gradually over time indicating and underlying problem with part of the knee. Othertimes, it develops suddenly due to an injury. Some people complain of a general achy back of knee pain, others find their leg movements may be restricted by swelling or there may be a sharp pain at the back of the knee.

Here we will look at the most common causes of pain behind the knee. By thinking about how your pain started, the common symptoms and how your pain behaves, you can work out what is causing your pain. As you read through each summary, you can decide whether it sounds like your problem or not. If it does, click on the link to find out more about treatment options and the recovery process. If it doesn't sound quite like your pain, simply move on to the next one.

1) Bakers Cyst

What is it: Inflammation of thepopliteal bursa (fluid filled sac) at the back of the knee. It is the most common cause of pain behind the knee.
Symptoms: Swelling (like a small water balloon), tightness and pain behind the knee
Aggravating Activities: Bending and straightening the knee, walking, kneeling
Onset: Can come on after a blow to the back of the knee but usually comes on gradually. Often associated with arthritis - fluid from the arthritis leaks back into the bursa causing it to swell
Treatment: Ice, exercises, aspiration, injection, electrotherapy and occasionally surgery
Recovery: Can take a few months for the pain behind knee to settle down and they have a tendancy to recur if not treated properly

Find out more: Bakers Cyst Knee

2) Posterior Cartilage/Meniscus Tear

What is it: Tear at the back of the cartilage lining the joint
Symptoms: Pain behind the knee, swelling, locking, instability, difficulty straightening the knee
Aggravating Activities: Walking, running, squatting, stairs esp going up
Onset: Can occur suddenly with a force through the knee, sudden twisting of the knee or gradually through wear and tear
Treatment: PRICE, exercises, tubigrip, knee brace and occasionally surgery
Recovery: Can take months to recover as the meniscus has a poor blood supply, which slows healing

Find out more: Meniscus Tears

3) Arthritis

What is it: Changes in the bone usually caused by wear and tear (osteoarthritis) or sometimes by inflammation (rheumatoid arthritis)
Symptoms: Morning stiffness, pain, swelling,clicking/grinding, reduced leg movements
Aggravating Activities: Worse after prolonged rest, activity, cold weather
Onset: Symptoms gradually come on over time. Most common over the age of 50
Treatment: Exercises, knee brace, heat, ice, acupuncture, weight loss, walking aids, gel knee pads, cushioned footwear, medication, injections
Recovery: The changes in the bone from arthritis cannot be undone, buttreatment aims to reduce pain, improve function and prevent deterioration

Find out more: Arthritis

4) Hamstring Injury

What is it: A tear in one of the hamstring muscles on the back of the thigh
Symptoms: General achy pain in back of knee where hamstring tendon attaches to the bone. Sharp pain behind knee with sudden movements
Aggravating Activities: Bending the leg, sudden acceleration or deceleration when moving.
Onset: Sudden onset with an injury
Treatment: PRICE, exercises, massage, tubigrip
Recovery: Usually takes 6-12 weeks to fully recover

5) Knee Sprain

What is it: Overstretching/tearing one of the ligaments in the knee
Symptoms: General pain, swelling, bruising, occasional giving way and/or decreased movement
Aggravating Activities: Depends on the severity but can be any physical activity or movement of the knee
Onset: Sudden twisting movements or a force through the knee
Treatment: PRICE, exercises,tubigrip, knee brace
Recovery: There are 3 grades of knee sprain depending on how much damage there is. It can take anything from 2 weeks to 3 months to fully recover, depending on the severity of the injury

Find out more: Knee Sprains

Everything You need To Know About Behind Knee Pain : Behind Knee Pain

Behind Knee Pain is a major problem for a lot of people and many of them have been suffering from it for years now. In most cases, the patients that get pain behind the knee are older in age. Usually, the case of the pain is either an older knee injury, or a problem of an orthopedic nature. One of the possible causes for pain behind the knee is the excess weight. The problem can either be the fact that you carry heavy objects around, or it can be excessive body weight. The possibility that an injury will appear increases considerably in this case and the bone degeneration is much faster as well. The result is the appearance of pain behind knee.

Causes of Behind Knee Pain

Back of Knee pain causes can be many, so it’s not always easy to figure out which one is the problem in your case. This type of pain can be caused by arthritis, cartilage injury, baker’s cyst, ligament injury, patellar tendonitis or a meniscal tear. This type of problem can appear in patients of all ages.

• Arthritis is one of the possible explanations for knee pain, a condition which appears when the joint gets inflamed. You will find that there is medication available which can be used to treat it, medication which can be obtained by visiting a doctor, which can confirm the problem.

• Injuries in the ligament area can appear because of a few different problems, including injuries to the MCL (medical collateral ligament), PCL (Posterior Cruciate Ligament) and ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament). Treating this type of injury is sometimes a matter of a surgical procedure, but that’s a call that the doctor has to make, based on what he finds and on the symptoms. This type of injury is usually experienced by athletes.

• Meniscal tear is another type of cause for knee pain and it’s a type of cartilage injury. It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young, you can still get this type of injury. The cause is sometimes traumatic injury, which is something that athletes experience. In other cases, when the patient is older, the cause is usually a degenerative process, caused by brittle bones. The tests which tell doctors if a meniscal tear is the cause of the pain include MRIs and x-rays.

• Another potential cause for pain behind knee is the condition known as Patellar Tendonitis, which appears because of the knee’s extreme usage. The knee is surrounded by tissue and tendon, which can become irritated and swollen. Another name that is used for this condition is Jumper’s knee, since it often appears during jumping, when the knee is used excessively. Athletes which practice sports which require lots of jumping will often have this problem, especially if they’re not reducing the amount of physical activity they do.

• The baker’s cyst is another major knee pain cause.It is also known as popliteal cyst.In this type of condition, fluid accumulates in the area behind the joint of the knee.This is not something that can spread behind the area where it appears though, so it is not considered a tumor. This condition is something that older people get and young individuals don’t usually have a problem with it.

Back of Knee Pain Symptoms

Feeling pain in back of knee usually happens because of an inflammation of the knee joints, making it difficult to move it backward or forward, either when climbing or walking stairs. If you’re having this type of problem, it’s a good idea to talk with a physiotherapist, so he can give you advice on the right posture to keep when you’re carrying or lifting heavy objects. One other possible reason why you would feel pain in that area is because of a weaker hamstring. These muscles are important when you want to bend the knee, together with the quadriceps muscles.

Treatment options for Pain Behind the Knee

If you want to reduce the chance that you will get an injury to the knee and if you want to keep them as supple as possible, you should try to make sure that the joints remain flexible and strong. When you do feel pain behind your knee, you should try resting it, while applying a cold compress on it. At the same time, try to make sure that the symptoms don’t get any worse.

When it’s a chronic case, you should discuss the problem with a doctor, in order to get a course of treatments which will improve your situation. Once the doctor examines you and figures out what causes the knee pain, he will be able to give you some recommendations. One example would be to wear some knee braces, which would help the ligaments act naturally, while easing your knee soreness feeling. There are a number of different types of equipments available for gyms which can help with the pain you feel behind your knee. They work by making weak muscles stronger, muscles which give support to the joint of the knee. It is advisable that you discuss it with a physiotherapist though, as he knows best what you need and he can give you advice on the sets of exercises which will not force the joints.

These days, there are improved surgical procedures and better drugs that are anti inflammatory, so if you have damaged tissue area and knee joints chances are better than ever that the doctors will be able to fix the problem. The patients that suffer from these problems today are much more likely to recover faster and to get back a good function level of the joint, while getting rid of pain at the same time.

Know your limits

People don’t know the limits of what their body can do, or they don’t realize that as they grow older, they can’t do as much as before. Repeated stress put on the knees can result in injuries and pain. The best course of treatment for pain behind  knee is preventing it in the first place, something that is true for many medical issues.