So do you or someone you know have sore aching knees? There are tons of potential knee problems out there and obviously I cant diagnose them over a blog – nor should you try to diagnose yourself by reading one!
But…
If this sounds familiar – intermittent or constant aching pain in the front or sides of the knees that came on for no apparent reason (no injury you can remember), pain on going up or down stairs or with prolonged sitting, nothing seems to help, the doctor can’t really find anything wrong even after imaging (Ultrasound, MRI or CT scan), you tried physio and strengthening exercises and it didn’t really help, you tried arthroscopic surgery and it didn’t help…. this post is for you.
If you have a combo of these symptoms or even if you have one of these symptoms you may have irritation to the coronary ligaments of the knee and fascial scar tissue.
Ok bringing that back a little bit – the coronary ligaments are little forgotten about thingies that hold the menisci (much more popular with orthopaedic surgeons and surgery) on to the tibia (lower leg bone). I wrote a paper about these once – it got published – you can Google it if you feel like it. These suckers are pretty good little pain generators and all they want is a tiny little bit of attention and they will settle down.
Additionally if you have ever injured your knee (or anything anywhere) you will have scar tissue. Just a fact of life. Ok, so fascia. What the hell is that? …. did you ever skin a chicken? when you peel the skin off of the muscle do you remember seeing that little saran-wrap-like layer? That’s fascia. When I went to school eons ago we didn’t really even learn about it much – they didn’t think that it did much of anything then. Boy were we wrong. Now it seems the fascia is an important part of our anatomy allowing muscles and bones to slide past each other easily and it even has contractile properties and moves a bit on its own. It is also a good pain generator because as soon as you get an injury there is bleeding and swelling and mess in the area and which causes fascia to stick to itself (kinda like saran wrap). That is scar tissue and it can cause an altered movement to the surrounding area and a strange pull on the tissue – which in turn cause pain.
Ok, so that is what is going on in your knee maybe… what do we do? Luckily with deep tissue work, instrument assisted fascial massage and adjustments to the knee, foot and hip these things are actually manageable. Even if you have had this problem for years.
I have seen patients with this problem go back to playing tennis or skiing after getting themselves treated even if they haven’t gone and done these sports for a long time (years). I have had patients carried in to the office or come in on crutches that could walk out after treatment – all because of these amazing little pain generators – because the great thing about them is that they just want a tiny little bit of attention and then a lot of the time they quiet down again…. call me if you have any questions!