Why Joint Injections Might Be the Answer to Your Knee Pain

Living with knee pain is complicated and often disrupts your daily life. If your work and home life have changed due to knee pain, you have several treatment options, including joint injections.

The Prudent Medical Providers team in Federal Way and Tacoma, Washington, offers joint injections and other effective treatments when you're suffering from knee pain.

Our three experienced nurse practitioners are experts in family medicine and managing mild to moderate pain in your joints.

What causes knee pain?

Your knees are complex joints that allow you to get through your day, whether that means climbing stairs, walking, or running, and they support your weight throughout your life. That duty leaves your knees prone to wear-and-tear and acute injury.

If you're incredibly active in sports or exercise, you're at a higher risk for knee injuries than people who don't participate in these activities. Common injuries that lead to knee pain include:

• Dislocation
• Meniscal tears
• ACL injuries
• Bursitis
• Patellar tendonitis
• Fractures

Arthritis is another factor in knee pain in people of all ages. Various forms of arthritis affect your joints, including osteoarthritis and inflammatory arthritis.

Osteoarthritis is a prevalent disease, causing the breakdown of protective tissues within your knee joint. It leaves your knees inflamed and painful.

Other forms of arthritis affect your joints similarly, causing painful inflammation and immobility as the disease progresses.

Understanding joint injections

If you suffer an injury or are experiencing pain in your knees and aren't sure why, the team evaluates your joints to determine the underlying cause. For specific injuries and arthritis, we may suggest joint injections to reduce your pain and improve your joint health.

We use various forms of joint injections for knee pain, such as:

Hyaluronic acid

Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring lubricant in your knee joint that helps it move smoothly and effectively. As you age, hyaluronic acid decreases, leading to pain and inflammation in your knees.

A hyaluronic acid injection helps restore fluidity in your joint by replacing the missing lubricant. You typically need several injections over a few weeks to see a change in your joint.

Cortisone injections

Cortisone is a powerful anti-inflammatory medication to decrease swelling and knee pain. We give cortisone injections with an anesthetic medicine to temporarily relieve pain at the injection site while the cortisone goes to work.

Regenerative medicine

Platelet-rich plasma and stem cell injections are forms of regenerative medicine. We can use your own cells in these injections to promote the healing of tissues within your knee joints and decrease inflammation and pain.

Benefits of joint injections for knee pain

Joint injections are often very successful in relieving knee pain and discomfort. We carefully evaluate your progress after your injection to determine how well it's working and whether you need another injection to get optimal results.

Joint injections have various significant benefits over other forms of treatment. These benefits include:

• They’re minimally invasive
• They’re effective in relieving pain
• They decrease inflammation
• They improve mobility
• They promote functionality
• They delay or ward off surgery

Knee pain isn't something you need to live with; plenty of treatment options are available. Joint injections are one of the more successful treatment approaches because they work quickly and efficiently to slow down arthritis and promote the healing of injuries within your joints.

Don't continue to suffer from knee pain; call Prudent Medical Providers today to schedule a joint injection or an appointment online using our convenient booking tool.