Gonarthrosis or osteoarthritis of the knee joint is a disease that cannot be completely cured.
However, modern medicine has learned to stop the pathological destruction of human body tissues. Using effective treatments, doctors:
- relieve pain for your patients;
- eliminate discomfort when driving;
- slow down the progression of the disease;
- significantly improve the quality of life of the person who requested them.
What is knee osteoarthritis?
The disease has several names for knee damage. It is often referred to as gonarthrosis, deforming osteoarthritis (DOA), and even arthritis, although the latter is more commonly used for rheumatoid conditions.
The disease is progressive in nature, therefore, without professional help, it often gives serious complications. As a result of its course, the cartilage tissue that lines the superficial layer of the joint is affected. This becomes the reason for the dysfunction of the capsule and the appearance of painful sensations.
According to one theory, knee osteoarthritis arises from an increase in life expectancy. According to this theory, a person over 50 does not feel old yet and continues to be active at the same level. However, your joints fail as they deplete the resource that nature gives you.
Why does gonarthrosis develop?
Limited mobility makes it difficult to walk, run, and move freely. Unaccustomed to this, a person perceives such restrictions as punishment. With the exacerbation of pathologies of the musculoskeletal system, even simple steps are difficult. After 50 years, the disease develops in one in two people. The most common causes of the abnormality in addition to age-related disorders:
- leg fractures affecting the knee joint area;
- knee dislocation, meniscus failure or damage;
- inflammation of the joint capsules (rheumatoid pathologies, gout, ankylosing spondylitis and others);
- failure of metabolic processes, joint weakness of a congenital nature;
- hereditary factor, genetic predisposition.
Gonarthrosis is equally likely to develop in an overweight elderly woman and in a young man injured during exercise.
Symptoms of pathology.
The disease does not appear suddenly. Negative symptoms are mild at first and get worse over time. The almost imperceptible knee pain when walking becomes more intense with increasing activity, climbing stairs. This seems to be manifested by the discomfort that has arisen due to long immobility.
The body appears to be numb and, at the beginning of movements, tries to adapt independently to the new load. As soon as a person "disperses", the unpleasant symptoms of the disease disappear, and the knee returns to normal mobility. It is at this time that you should see a doctor for an examination. By ignoring the diagnosis, a person is putting himself in great danger.
Little by little, the symptoms become more pronounced:
- the pain becomes continuous, now it does not disappear during physical exertion;
- the range of motion becomes limited, the knee becomes limited, swollen and enlarged.
Doctors say that going to the clinic in the early stages opens up good prospects for treatment. The disease can be stopped without using expensive drugs and methods. With each new day of inactivity, the risks increase. In stage III, it is almost impossible to neutralize severe symptoms.
Diagnosis of gonarthrosis
During the initial appointment, the specialist listens to the patient's complaints, clarifies the symptoms, examines the knee, and directs the patient to an X-ray. In the early stages of changes, external signs are absent, in stages II and III:
- the contours of the bones become coarser;
- joint capsules undergo deformation changes;
- the axis of the limb bends and movement becomes limited.
On palpation, a creaking is often heard, it is worth moving the patella in the transverse direction. The pain becomes more pronounced. Thanks to the X-ray examination, you can clarify the diagnosis. The images allow evaluating the degree of changes, to differentiate the alterations from other pathologies.
Treatment of knee osteoarthritis
When gonarthrosis is detected, an integrated approach to treatment should be used. Only in this case is sustainable improvement possible. Here, an individual therapy plan is drawn up for each patient, combining traditional approaches and modern signature techniques. When developing a treatment plan for osteoarthritis of the knee, the patient's age, history, lifestyle, and history of correction of past musculoskeletal disorders are taken into account.
Drug therapy
Preparations for the treatment of arthrosis of the knee joint are selected from the following groups:
- anti-inflammatory drugs;
- analgesics;
- Chondroprotective formulas based on hyaluronic acid (whose purpose is to restore the integrity of the cartilage fibers in the damaged joint capsule).
Pharmaceutical companies produce a wide variety of drugs to treat this disease. Among them are creams, ointments, gel formulations, tablets, solutions for injections. Medications are important when you need to quickly relieve acute pain, reduce the effects of the inflammatory process. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), steroids, and vasodilators are especially popular.
Joint manual therapy
Gentle hand techniques allow you to gently and physiologically restore the natural anatomical relationships between internal structures. Since osteoarthritis occurs due to overloading of the knee, displacement and abrasion of the cartilage, as well as the incorrect projection of the position of the bones to each other, it is possible to correct the situation with the help of manual therapy.
The doctor separates the missing structures to join them in the correct proportion. At the same time, the muscular and ligamentous corset is reinforced. The founder of the clinic uses the experience of Western colleagues and the author's methods in his work. This allows you to achieve a stable result that lasts for a long time.
Shock wave therapy
UHT is a method that has proven itself in the Russian practice of treating knee osteoarthritis. The impact on the affected area is carried out through special equipment that generates acoustic signals with a pulse frequency of 2-4 thousand per session. Thanks to the hardware technique, it is possible to activate blood circulation, improve metabolism in tissues and stimulate the regeneration of bone and cartilage fibers.
Di-Tazin Therapy
Author's technique based on a combination of photosensitization, multicomponent electrophoresis and gentle manual techniques. It aims to restore the damaged joint, relieve pain and discomfort. It is complemented with kinesiological procedures, bandaging, physiotherapy, blocking injections, introduction of chondroprotectors and drugs based on hyaluronic acid in the joint. All this in a complex allows you to stop the destruction of the knee joint, eliminate pain and stimulate the renewal of tissues.
Plasmolifting
Safe and painless procedure. The doctor draws venous blood from the patient, processes it in a special centrifuge, and after separating the plasma, injects it into the damaged joint with a normal needle. It is recommended to carry out the sessions in courses to consolidate the result. Plasmolifting helps to relieve pain and inflammation, restores the mobility of the joint capsule.
Recording
Apply tape (self-adhesive tape) in a specially selected direction according to the location of the fibers of the damaged part. In case of illness, a wide tip is used. Relieves pain by relieving muscle tension. In case of swelling, a special lymphatic tape is used, the rays of which are directed to the nearest lymph nodes.
Other treatments
In the clinic, specialists select profile orthopedic insoles for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee joint. They help correct functional changes, relieve pain and evenly distribute the load on the legs. Strengthening the ligamentous apparatus through home exercise therapy allows you to stabilize the position of the knee.