Reasons For Consulting a Physical Therapist for Hip & Knee Pain

Are you struggling with hip or knee pain? Is your pain making it tough for you to focus on your personal and professional lives? If so, make sure that you get yourself treated by a licensed physical therapist at a trusted physical therapy clinic in your city. You need to seek professional help quickly to deal with your problem effectively. Any delays in getting the right treatment at the right time will only complicate your situation further. If you need or don’t need physical therapy that’s something better left to physicians to assess accurately.

So whether you are experiencing hip pain or knee pain, you should not ignore it anymore if you have already been doing so.

Both hips and knees are highly complicated joint systems; so you need to deal with your problem on a priority basis. You can take medications, but they can put you on the risk of having side effects; therefore, it’s better to avoid them, if possible.  Just because you can’t rely on medication, it doesn’t mean you can’t treat your problem. Yes, you can address it by seeking physical therapy treatments. It’s a drug and surgery-free way of treating musculoskeletal conditions.

But before we discuss how it’s helpful for you, let’s throw some light on the problems that people with hip and knee pain face.

• Difficulty in climbing the stairs up and down because it puts stress on knees and requires hips to be more flexible
• Trouble in getting up from the bed and couch after lying down or sitting continuously for three to four hours
• Problem bending forward to pick something up from the floor
• Experiencing more pain while walking
• Difficulty standing in one place for more than half an hour
• Problem concentrating on the work both in the office and at home

So, if you want to return to your regular life fast, seek physical therapy treatments. Your physical therapist will evaluate your problem effectively. They will spend enough time discussing your signs and symptoms to understand the actual cause of your problem. Your physical therapist will also ask you tons of questions about your past illnesses. They will check your medical history to understand your overall fitness level.

Your physical therapist will also ask you questions about your dietary habits to figure out whether you are consuming necessary nutrients or not. Considering that you need a balanced diet to keep your body healthy if you are missing out on healthy foods, you should include them in your diet.  In short, they will educate you about your food habits as well.

After analyzing your current fitness level and your medical history, your physical therapist will design a care plan to meet your needs. They will use techniques that best suit your recovery needs.

Here are some of the techniques that your physical therapist might use to treat your hip and knee pain.

Therapeutic Exercise  

There are different types of therapeutic exercises so your physical therapist will incorporate the one that you need the most. For example, if the pain in your hip or knee has reduced your mobility, they will use the range of motion exercises to address your needs. If you have weak muscles as well, then your physical therapist will use muscle performance exercises to strengthen them.

Apart from that, therapeutic exercises also include balance and coordination exercises and relaxation exercises. But if you don’t need them, your physical therapist will exclude them.

According to Athalon Physical Therapy, “Therapeutic exercise refers to a wide range of physical activities that focus on restoring and maintaining strength, endurance, flexibility, stability, and balance.”

Manual Therapy

Manual therapy is also a famous technique that physical therapists use to treat hip and knee pain. They use manual therapy techniques on painful joints and soft tissues. It helps in minimizing inflammation and increasing range of motion. You will see a vast difference in the reduction of pain after a couple of manual therapy sessions.

Your therapist might use joint mobilization to address your painful knee or hip.

Massage Therapy

Another crucial technique that physical therapists use to treat hip and knee pain is massage therapy. It helps in increasing circulation that plays a considerable role in promoting healing. In case you are experiencing hip or knee pain due to an injury or an underlying illness like arthritis, massage therapy can prove to be highly useful for you. It will not only help in relieving the pain but will also increase your flexibility. Apart from that, it will also offer much-needed relaxation to you.

Apart from relieving pain, massage therapy also helps in getting a good night’s sleep, lowers high blood pressure, relieves headaches, improves posture, and reduces fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

Kinesio Taping

Kinesio taping also helps in reducing hip and knee pain. It’s a technique during which your physical therapist will apply a therapeutic tape on your affected hip or knee to relieve the pain and accelerate the healing process. The tape will start working after it gets activated from your body heat. 

If you love performing exercises at the gym, but you are unable to do that currently due to knee pain, then Kinesio taping can help you. Considering that it helps in easing pressure on the affected joint, you can perform lightweight exercises after applying it. Gym goers often use these tapes while performing workouts.

Apart from that, your physical therapist can also use ultrasound, and electrical stimulation to address your problem.

Author Bio 

David is a writer, student and pet lover. He loves butter chicken, and seeing his small pug, naughty Annie. We sat down with Athalon Physical Therapy, physical therapy treatment center in New York, to discuss about the hip & knee pain. When he isn’t writing, you can find him at near Starbucks.