Managing Your Knee and Shoulder Pain
To further improve health and wellness, regular exercise is always recommended. It greatly improves our body’s functions, resistance to diseases, and also provides good psychological effects. Carrying out different types of exercises and not solely focusing on one body part is also essential. However, there are times wherein people tend to forget proper ways in doing exercises. These may include the right posture, timing, intervals, and repetitions. Thus, resulting to injuries and pain to most body parts. The common parts injured with improper exercising are the knees and shoulders. The knees play a big role in carrying the body’s weight and maintaining balance. On the other hand, the shoulders provide support in rotations and movement of the arms. So what would should be done if injuries involving the knees and shoulders are encountered?
In treating many types of knee and shoulder pain, a common goal is to break the so-called “inflammatory cycle”. This cycle usually starts with an injury. After an injury, inflammation invades the knee and shoulders, which causes further injury, and further inflammation, and so on. This cycle of inflammation leads to continued or progressive pain. The cycle can be broken by fighting the inflammation through medications or other therapies and by limiting further injury to tissue.
Some common home-care remedies that control inflammation and help to break the inflammatory cycle are protection, rest, ice, compression, and elevation. First, you should protect the shoulders and the knees from further stress or trauma. In doing heavy physical activities, paddings can be used or other types of specialty clothing which can help protect those parts. Second, to lessen the pain, it is best to give those parts rest and avoid its excessive use. Third, icing the knees and shoulders, or cold application could really help in reducing swelling. This can also be used for both chronic and acute pain. Ice bags or even cold vegetables can be used and it is recommended by professionals to perform icing two to three times per day for 20-30 minutes each session. Lastly, compression of the swollen parts using bandages and other wraps would also greatly help in reducing the swelling as well as aligning joints to other parts. For knee pains, it is also advised to elevate the knee using a cushion or a recliner since elevation works with gravity to help fluids that might accumulate on the knee to go back to normal circulation. Other medications that are given to are common pain relievers and anti-inflammatory drugs. Some also prescribe steroids for better and faster response.
If the shoulder and knee pain don’t improve with simple medications and basic home solutions, other treatments are available. Your doctor will be able to give more specific advice. A physiotherapist will most likely be able to help addressing these pains. The aim of physiotherapy is to improve symptoms and restore function. The approach will depend on whether you have a short-term problem or a long-standing condition. A normal physiotherapy program would include planned exercises to strengthen and improve function, prevent stiffness, manual treatment of soft tissues and joints, and comprehensive patient education.
