Knee Injury Diagnosis and Symptoms

Knee injuries can be very painful and they can occur in even the most everyday situations. It is important that knee injuries are diagnosed as soon as possible to avoid making the injury any worse. In this guide we shall look at how you can diagnose a knee injury and what the symptoms are.

Types of Knee Injury

There are all different types of knee injury – many much more severe than others. No matter how minor you think it is it is important to get it checked out to find out how much damage has occurred and to make sure you get the correct treatment as soon as possible.

Some of the most common knee injuries include sprains and strains that are usually treated with rest and icepacks.

Other more serious knee injuries can include fractures and dislocations that will often require surgery and months of rehabilitation to bring your knee back to its original strength.

Different types of knee injuries will have different symptoms and your doctor will be able to diagnosis your particular injury.

Symptoms of a Knee Injury

The most common sign that you have a knee injury is swelling. Swelling is caused when excessive fluid collects in membrane of the knee capsule. The fluid is usually produced when the knee has undergone some sort of trauma or overuse so it is usually a sign that something is not quite right and it should be checked out by a doctor.

Another symptom of a knee injury is if there is any pain caused by bending your knee or by putting weight on it. This will often occur alongside the swelling of the knee and can indicate an acute knee injury.

Longer term knee injuries may have a variety of symptoms and they may be intermittent and in some cases only brought on by certain activities. Inflammation and pain may not be constant but it can occur on occasion indicating that you have a longer term knee injury that will need to be treated.

Sometimes pain in the knee can occur only when doing certain activities. For example, if you experience pain when climbing stairs then it could be a symptom of a meniscus injury, whereas if you only experience pain when going down stairs then this could mean that you are suffering from a patellar injury – meaning the kneecap is being forced onto the femur.

If your knee has a feeling of instability or it feels weak then this indicates that you have injured a ligament.

How a Doctor Diagnoses a Knee Injury

Diagnosing a knee injury can be very difficult as there are rarely any visible signs of injury. However there are certain tests that a physician can take on you to try and diagnose your condition.

You will need to tell your doctor exactly how it feels and how the injury occurred to help them paint a picture of what is going on inside there.

The doctor will usually perform a physical examination in which they will feel your knee for swelling and inflammation. The swelling will usually be confined to a particular area that the injury has occurred helping the doctor to work out which ligament or muscle has been damaged.

If they think that you may have torn a ligament or something is not quite right then they will usually send you to have an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan done. This gives them a detailed look at what damage has occurred to your knee and they can use that to decide which treatment you require.

Depending on the injury they may tell you just to rest it and they will often just heal themselves over a period of time, or in severe cases you may require surgery to rectify the damage.