Practice tai chi to relieve knee pain
The ancient art of tai chi will make you feel calmer, improve your balance and also ease achy knees. Researchers believe the benefit may be a result of the slow, deliberate movements may help strengthen muscles surrounding the joints, albeit in a gentle way, helping to improve posture and relieving pressure on your joints.
Learn more about the health benefits of Tai Chi
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Build more muscle to relieve knee pain
Knee pain is exacerbated when the muscles surrounding your joints are weak, so by carefully targeting those muscles with exercise you’ll experience better alignment in your muscles and bones.
However, you must be careful not to injure yourself – avoid any exercises where your knee goes beyond your toes, such as deep lunges, for example, as it puts pressure on the kneecap. Partial squats (where you only lower yourself halfway) are good, as are step-ups.
Prevent muscle loss
Lose weight to relieve knee pain
You might not think that extra pound or kilo makes much difference to your knees but it does. Researchers theorise that losing a pound (0.5kg) is the equivalent of taking 5 pounds (2.5kg) of pressure off your knees.
10 ways to please your knees
Drink milk to relieve knee pain
Or you can eat cheese or yogurt. Research published in the medical journal Arthritis Care & Research found that drinking a glass of milk daily helped female patients with osteoarthritis slow any further development of the disease.
Osteoarthritis - the foods to avoid
Glucosamine combined with chondroitin may help relieve knee pain
Researchers haven’t been able to show these meds improve symptoms in all patients but they have shown that some patients do respond very well to it. Why do some patients feel the benefit and others don’t? They don’t know yet. In the meantime, it’s worth giving it a go.
Find out more about glucosamine
Learn more about chondroitin
Use ice to relieve knee pain
If you do suffer a knee injury put ice on it for about 20 minutes per hour. This will help reduce inflammation. For the same reason, taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen will also be beneficial.
What's causing your knee pain?
Corticosteroids to relieve knee pain
These injections are very effective but the pain may well return. There is concern that overuse of corticosteroids causes cartilage to deteriorate so this is something to try only when you really need to.
Read what Dr Mark Porter has to say about steroid injections for knee arthritis
Do you need a new knee to relieve your knee pain?
It was once the stuff of science fiction but now getting a new metal and plastic implant to replace your old knee is sometimes the best option.
Find out more about knee replacement surgery
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