Knee pain – just one of those things that happens as you get older right? Or because you’re a runner. Or a tennis player. Or a padel player. Or . . . . just one of those things you learn to live with.

Or is it?

If you’ve got knee pain and you aren’t making progress perhaps there’s more to it?

The whole body

Everything in the body is connected. And it should all work together as a team. If one part is out of balance than this can cause other parts to work harder, become lopsided . . . in other words it can cause pain elsewhere, this is called referred pain and is a huge factor that is often ignored as we much prefer to treat the part that hurts, even if it isn’t working!

This is why the first step in ANY treatment program is a full, clinical assessment of the patient. Not just their knee but all the parts connected to the knee as well.

Referred pain

Earlier this month I had a gentleman come in complaining of long term (5+ years!!) pain in his knee. He’d had 2 rounds of surgery on the knee with no improvement.

During my assessment I found that he had an even longer history of lower back pain and hip pain. When he described the knee pain he talked about a “burning” sensation. If you’ve read my previous articles about neural pain you’ll know this is a huge red flashing light that we need to check what else is involved!

So rather than focus on his knee, we focused on his back, I taught him a couple of little tricks and . . . he walked out with no knee pain. Me, his wife, their friend, we were all in tears at the transformation.

All that time, pain and surgery he went through and no one had ever taken the time to listen to him or look at the connections. No one had ever done a thorough, clinical assessment.

Great results

You can get the best treatment in the world but if you aren’t treating the right area you won’t get a good result. Sometimes it is just that simple.