Knee Pain

Knee pain occurs for many reasons. Sometimes knee pain starts because of an injury, such as a ruptured ligament or damaged cartilage. Certain medical conditions, such as arthritis, gout or infections, also can cause your knee to hurt and have limited function.

Whether the pain is caused by overuse from athletics or certain careers, or from a trauma such as a car accident or a sudden blow during a football game, you’ll want to see the knee experts at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center when that pain begins to impact your daily living or that pain persists longer than a few weeks.

While we can help diagnose and treat any source of knee pain, the most common knee conditions we treat include:

• Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear: Damage to a stabilizing ligament that runs diagonally through your knee and keeps the shinbone in place
• Meniscus tear: Twisting or bending injury that causes damage to the pad that sits between the thighbone and shinbone
• Cartilage injury: When holes or cracks appear in the cartilage, which is the smooth gliding surface of knee joints, due to an injury or wear-and-tear over time
• Kneecap dislocation: When a sudden change in direction puts your kneecap under stress and causes it to slip out to the side of the knee
• Knee sprain: Stretching or tearing of one or more of the knee ligaments
• Collateral ligament injuries (MCL or LCL): Partial (sprain) or full tear of the ligament on the inside (MCL) or outside (LCL) of the knee
• Patellofemoral pain syndrome (sometimes referred to as runner’s knee): Pain in the front of the knee during activities that involve bending the knee, such as climbing stairs or sitting with the knee bent
• Patellar tendonitis (sometimes referred to as jumper’s knee or knee tendonitis): Inflammation or partial tearing of the tendon connecting the kneecap to the shin

Knee preservation and treatment of knee pain

When we’re considering treatment options for a knee injury, we first consider how much the problem impacts your quality of life. There are a variety of nonsurgical treatment options that can be good alternatives to surgery in many cases.

Some of the nonsurgical treatments we might recommend include:

• Physical therapy
• Medications (oral and topical)
• Injections (steroids, viscosupplementation, orthobiologics)
• Bracing
• Lifestyle modification
• Dry needling
• Shockwave therapy

In most cases, our experts will recommend exhausting these treatment options before deciding on surgery. If you’re a candidate for surgery, we have numerous techniques that can preserve the knee, meaning we aim to repair or restore tissue and knee function without the need for a knee replacement. We’re true experts in working toward saving your knee.

However, if you do need a knee replacement, we’re also home to surgeons who’ve dedicated their professional lives to honing their skills in joint replacement surgery and innovating new and better ways to perform it.

The knee experts at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center are national leaders in diagnosing and treating knee conditions, often initiating clinical trials to study the latest orthopedic advances and speaking across the country on best practices.

Our care for people with knee pain, especially athletes of all levels, is unparalleled in the region. Reasons to choose Ohio State for your knee care include:

Trusted by athletes: Our knee experts serve as team physicians for Ohio State Athletics as well as professional and Olympic athletes across the nation. Whether you’re an athlete or not, we make this elite level of care accessible to everyone.

Emphasis on preservation: While joint replacement is the appropriate treatment for some, we recognize that many more people might be candidates for more conservative or less-invasive treatments. We have various surgical techniques available that can prevent or delay the need for a knee replacement.

Surgical expertise: Because of a focus on restoration, we offer a full spectrum of treatment options that you won’t find in many other hospitals. These include our cartilage restoration procedures, offloading osteotomy procedures, the MISHA Knee System and the capabilities to repair complex meniscus tears.

Expert, collaborative care: We offer fellowship-level physician care and physical therapy. Our providers have completed up to two additional years of intense, specialized experiential education in the field, resulting in extensive proficiency in patient care. As part of an academic medical center, we work alongside experts in various fields, so no matter your orthopedic or sports medicine needs, you’ll receive the best care.