Home Remedies for Knee Pain

Knee pain is a common complaint and can be incredibly irritating, affecting your ability to walk and impairs other functional abilities in your life.  Your knee joint pain may be caused by a myriad of issues.  When pain is not severe, and not affecting the ability to adequately perform necessary tasks in your everyday life, there are a number of home remedies for knee pain relief that can be attempted.

The first home remedy for knee pain is necessary if you notice any swelling in the area.  If you do notice this, follow the protocol RICE.  This stands for:

• Rest
• Ice: Never apply ice directly to the skin, and for no longer than 10 minutes
• Compression
• Elevation: when elevating the knee due to swelling, be sure to lie down and raise your knee above the level of your in order to facilitate blood flow.

There will not always be swelling when your knee is bothering you; however, when you do not notice edema in the knee and only pain, try cold therapy for the first few days, then try heat.  A commonly used knee joint pain treatment home remedy is to ice the area, which will numb the pain and hopefully stop any inflammation or infections within the knee joint from progressing.

After a few days of icing it and it continues to bother you, try heat.  The heat will help to get things moving, facilitate blood flow and help to flush out the accumulation of any bad particles that may be left in your knee as a result of your body sending white blood cells to the area of pain in an attempt to fight off and fix whatever the issue is.  Do not apply heat to the area for longer than 20 minutes, and make sure it’s a comfortable temperature.  You want heat, but not enough heat that you burn the skin around the knee.

But, along with the above, the most helpful knee pain natural remedy that you can employ involves prevention.  Managing weight is a crucial component of knee health.  The knees bear the weight of the entire body during ambulation.  If you are overweight, this places a great amount of unnecessary stress on the knees. So, following a good diet and exercising consistently will improve the immune system and overall health of the body.

Strengthening the knee joint and all muscles surrounding it are the key to a fully functioning, pain-free knee throughout your life.  Some wonderful low-impact strengthening activities and exercises are:

• Tai Chi
• Water aerobics/swimming
• Walking
• Biking
• General strengthening exercises of the leg, particularly the quadriceps muscles and glutes such as mini-squats where you hold onto a countertop, raising and lowering your leg from a seated position, bridges, and holding onto a chair while standing and kicking one foot backward.
• Flexibility exercises

When to see an orthopedic doctor

If you have attempted one or all of the above pain relief home remedies for your knee pain and they have failed to help, this is when you need to consult with an orthopedic doctor.  Even if you have not attempted any of the above-mentioned home remedies, and the pain that you are experiencing is so severe that it is affecting your ability to function, indicates it is also the time to see an orthopedic doctor.  Your doctor will be able to obtain an accurate diagnosis and determine if anything more involved and sinister may be causing your knee pain. Then, you and your physician can determine the best treatment strategy moving forward.