How is osteoarthritis of the knee treated?
Your doctor will recommend therapies to help relieve pain. Your doctor can tell you that:
- Rest your knee or avoid activities that make your pain worse.
- Put ice on the knee for 20 to 30 minutes a few times a day, to reduce inflammation and relieve pain.
- Take an over-the-counter medication, such as acetaminophen (one brand: Tylenol) or ibuprofen (one brand: Motrin).
- Do physical therapy or certain exercises to help strengthen the muscles that surround the joint.
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Are there other options?
Yes. If oral medications and physical therapy do not help the knee enough, your doctor may consider giving you an injection of pain medication (called an anesthetic). This can stop the pain for days to weeks. Adding another medication (called a corticosteroid) to the anesthetic can prevent pain and inflammation for longer. If this does not help enough, your doctor may talk to you about surgery or injections of hyaluronic acid.
What are hyaluronic acid injections?
Some of the hyaluronic acid is already in the joint fluid. In people who have osteoarthritis, hyaluronic acid becomes less thick. When this happens, there is not enough hyaluronic acid to protect the joint. Injections can introduce more hyaluronic acid into the knee joint to help protect it.
Injections of hyaluronic acid may relieve pain more than oral medications. These injections can help the pain go away for 6 months to a year and, sometimes, longer. Unfortunately, these injections do not help all people.
Hyaluronic acid injections are also expensive, but many health insurance programs cover them. It is possible that hyaluronic acid injections are an option for you. Your doctor will talk with you about the advantages and disadvantages of hyaluronic acid injections and whether they are right for you.
What happens with the surgery?
Sometimes osteoarthritis of the knee is so intense that surgery is required to relieve the symptoms. Surgical options include:
- Arthroscopy is performed with a small endoscope (or camera) that is inserted through the tiny cuts made by a surgeon in the knee. With the endoscope, the surgeon can see the degree of severity of the damage that osteoarthritis has caused in the knee. With other small instruments, the surgeon can remove the damaged parts of the knee joint (this is called debridement), and clean or purge the joint to remove any loose part (called washing or irrigation) that may be causing pain. . Arthroscopy is not suitable for all people and can only provide temporary pain relief or delay the need for other surgeries.
- Osteotomy is a surgery that re-locates or reshapes the bones of the knee where osteoarthritis has caused damage. This procedure can only be done when only one area or one side of the knee is damaged. This procedure changes the position or alignment of the knee so that the weight is removed from the damaged area. This procedure restores movement in the knee and relieves pain. However, it is possible that people who underwent an osteotomy will need knee replacement surgery in the future.
- Arthroplasty is also called joint or knee replacement therapy. A surgeon removes the part of the knee damaged by osteoarthritis and replaces it with an artificial joint made of metals and plastic. In this procedure, all or part of the knee joint can be replaced. Although the recovery may take a long time depending on the magnitude of the surgery, the results of the arthroplasty are often successful. Knee replacement therapy can help put an end to your pain and improve or restore movement of the knee.