Got this question sent to me yesterday by a “confused” reader of my newspaper articles suffering with knee pain… “Hey Jennifer, I’ve been suffering with a pain in my right knee now for a few weeks. What I can’t put my finger on is what I did to make it start in the first place, and even more confusing is that it’s most painful when walking down the stairs, and only comes on 10 minutes into a run. Sometimes it aches, sometimes it feels tender and dull, but I don’t understand why I could run fine before and now I can’t without having to stop after 10 minutes. Can you help?” – Mary, 46, Lacey. What Causes This? There’s a good chance that the same thing is happening to Mary as it does to most people this time of year… And it’s no surprise as we see off the end of Summer and start heading into Fall. This time of year we see more people than ever at Penrose Physical Therapy with painful knees. The reason why? Because it’s around this time of year that people decide to be more active and take things up like running and walking for longer distances, making the most of the nice weather and generally being more active. And even if they’re used to running, people tend to step it up and run a little longer than usual to get ready for upcoming races, sometimes adding in extra running days going… Read More

Got this question sent to me yesterday by a “confused” reader of my newspaper articles suffering with knee pain… “Hey Jennifer, I’ve been suffering with a pain in my right knee now for a few weeks. What I can’t put my finger on is what I did to make it start in the first place, and even more confusing is that it’s most painful when walking down the stairs, and only comes on 10 minutes into a run. Sometimes it aches, sometimes it feels tender and dull, but I don’t understand why I could run fine before and now I can’t without having to stop after 10 minutes. Can you help?” – Mary, 46, Lacey. Why Is This Time Of Year Different? There’s a good chance that the same thing is happening to Mary as it does to most people this time of year… This time of year we see more people than ever at Penrose Physical Therapy with painful knees. The reason why? Because it’s around this time of year that people decide to be more active and take things up like running and walking for longer distances, making the most of the nice weather and generally being more active. And even if they’re used to running, people tend to step it up and run a little longer than usual to get ready for upcoming races, sometimes adding in extra running days going from twice a week, to four times a week. What’s likely… Read More

So far in this series on knee pain, we’ve covered a lot of different topics. We’ve looked at the 3 things you could be doing that make knee pain worse, which included wearing the wrong shoes, sitting with your legs bent and taking it too easy. We then looked at the 3 ‘quick fixes’ people think will help knee pain, but don’t. (Painkillers, resting and wearing a support). Next it was looking at whether knee replacement surgery could be avoided. Most recently, we looked at how to stop arthritis before it stops you. That’s a lot to cover in just 4 weeks, but we’ve still got more to cover. Knee pain is something that a lot of people struggle with at any time of year. But especially when in the warmer months, as people tend to be more active. Which leads me to this week’s article… Question for Dr. Penrose This question was sent to me yesterday by a reader suffering with knee pain: “Jennifer, I’ve been suffering with on-off type knee pain now for more than a year. What I can’t put my finger on is when it started or why. What’s more confusing is that my pain gets worse as the day goes on. But whenever I wake up, the pain is gone – or is considerably less. By the end of another day, my knee aches, sometimes, hot and swollen with considerable pain. It’s especially bad if I’ve been out for a long walk… Read More