We find that many people have been told, you’ll need an operation on your knee for it to improve, or ‘you have arthritis’ and there’s nothing we can do, ‘you need to get a knee replacement.'

In some cases yes surgery is the best option especially if your knee is causing you a lot of discomfort, instability and you’re unable to normal daily activities.

However, for those who have been told this before they’ve even tried conservative (non-invasive) treatment – hands-on treatment, manual therapy, exercise and rehab. Please consider this!

Why is Your Body in Pain?

Much of the time if there is pain and discomfort in your body, it is likely that your body has done a good job compensating and now it’s had enough/ Muscles, joints and ligaments have adjusted to try and accommodate changes, and not only just in the problem area. Ie. for the knee you can start to feel issues higher up in the hip or lower back, maybe because you’re limping due to discomfort, causing issues on the other side or through your lower back.

The pain can often be due to muscular tension (typically a dull ache), and yes you may have some changes in the structure of your knee such as a meniscus or an ACL injury that, yes, may require surgery but often we find that much discomfort can be alleviated with the correct hands-on treatment.

Treatment is Not Just Pain Relief

But pain relief is not the only benefit. If you are heading down the road of surgery, this means you’re going to have to rehab to get the most out of it!

Treatment is also an opportunity to help you slowly learn corrective exercises. Often pain can cause muscles to turn off, and it’s difficult to learn how to use them again!

Prehab

By easing discomfort your body is more willing to engage muscles and strengthen them. We call this time prehab. It’s doing the work to get you in the best shape in prep for surgery so that you have optimal outcomes and get the most out of surgery, a better recovery and better chance of getting into your rehab as early and effectively as possible.

Exercises to Get You Started

DOWNLOAD our basic knee exercises. *Please note that you may have some difficulty engaging these muscles if you have a chronic knee injury. This is where we can help with treatment. To help stimulate your muscles to make it easier to exercise them.

Benefits of Treatment Before Surgery

And, sometimes we find that people who so urgently needed surgery, actually don’t! They can reduce their pain killers, return to some level of activity and post-pone surgery for months or years.

So if you’ve been told you have a degenereative knee. Lets help either get you in shape for surgery or even prevent it needing to happen in the first place!

How Does Arthritis of the Knee Develop?

The progression towards arthritis is usually because of a previous trauma or injury causing a change in mechanics and load to your joint. In your knee it could be:

• Sprain knee – injury to the medial or lateral collateral ligaments
• Cartilage issue – meniscus tag or tear
• Internal ligament damage – the anterior cruciate ligament or posterior cruciate ligament

Address the Issue

As always, it’s important to address the underlying reasons that may have led to your condition in the first place: Existing weakness, biomechanical issues which need correcting etc…

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not against surgery at all. It is amazing what it can do. But don’t use it as your only ‘fix’.

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