Do you get pain on the outside of your knee?

Does it sit right above the knee and just ache like crazy?

You are not alone. Patellofemoral knee pain, or pain on the side of the knee is the second leading cause of musculoskeletal pain in the United States.

To understand how knee pain comes about, let’s take a look further up the body and talk about the spine and hips

Spine & Hip Involvement in Knee Pain

It all starts at the top with Atlas.

Whats Atlas?

Atlas is the very top bone in your spine and when it misaligns, a lot can go wrong. We can see problems like headaches, neck pain and migraines or even low back pain, insomnia and infertility.

It’s a big deal and when it is out of alignment, all 25 other spinal bones follow suit.

It is a lot like dominios. Once the first one falls, the rest fall right behind it.

How Does Atlas Affect The Knee?

Once Atlas misaligns, the head will begin to tilt. When the head begins to tilt, the body’s center of gravity will begin to shift off to one side or the other. This will begin to twist and tilt the rest of the spine to accomodate for that change.

This leads to abnormal biomechanics all the way down the body, but it can really shift the hips.

The Role of the Hips

Once those abnormal biomechanics start to take place, you will begin to alter the way you walk. This will throw off your pelvis, and lead to an abnormal gate. This abnormal gate will alter how the knee moves through space and will alter the way you take each step.

As you can see, its not “just my knee Doc”. There is a lot at play in a knee injury, and at Clarity Chiropractic, we know how to get the results you want with permant symptom relief, not just a quick fix.

Let’s Talk Knee Anatomy

I don’t know about you, but anatomy was my favorite class in college. Lets geek out for a bit on knee anatomy, and how misalignments can be painful and dangerous if left untreated.

A Knee’s Normal Path

The knee is a pretty unstable structure. It is essentially two sticks held together by a bunch of string; twigs being femur and tibia, and string being muscles and ligaments.

The femur or thigh bone has two round protuberances that sit in two shallow grooves on the tibia. Check out this picture for reference.

Normally, the patella or kneecap tracks right between those two knuckles on the femur. This is a great example of a healthy, happy knee. Now that we know what normal looks like, lets talk about how knees can begin to break down.

What Controls the Muscles?

A simple question, with a simple answer.

Nerves.

if the nervous system is dysregulated or irregular, it will cause abnormal signals to be sent to the muscles. This can cause spasm of the muscle, which will lead to rotation or abnormal position of the tibia or knee cap, creating pain.

The Big Idea

That is a lot of big words to say, spinal misalignment effects the knees in a negative way, therefore spinal correction can positively impact the knees.

Lets talk about the most common diagnoses in the knee.

Patellofemoral Knee Pain or “Runners Knee”

What is it?

Pain on the outside of the knee

Who experiences this pain?

Mostly Athletes. This is the number 1 cause of pain in olympic weightlifters, and we see it in a lot of our CrossFit athletes along with shoulder impingement. This can commonly occur in runners and often times they are told to “just stop running”. As a marathon runner, Dr. Allison takes offense to that statement and we at Clarity Chiropractic see no reason for you to ever stop doing what you love.

How Does Chiropractic Help?

Often times, we notice our athletes with lateral knee pain or pain on the outside of the knee getting results with just spinal adjusting. We go one step further and adjust the knee along with the IT band or iliotibial band. Releasing IT band can help manage a lot of the pain, and re-align kneecap for proper function.

What Does This Mean For You?

This means that knee pain on the outside is not a permeant issues, and is treatable. We have seen this condition over and over, and continue to get success with correction of the spine and hips. Remember, everything is connected. Get started healing your knee discomfort today!