Have you been suffering from Chronic Knee Pain?

Chronic knee pain is notoriously difficult to treat successfully.
Persons with these problems often become discouraged as they shuttle from
specialist to specialist, from rheumatologist to orthopedic surgeon to physical
therapist to acupuncturist and back again. Lack of progress and improvement
becomes understandable when one considers that typical evaluation and treatment
are directed at the symptoms. But with chronic knee pain, and many other pain
syndromes, actual benefits may be obtained by addressing underlying
biomechanical problems.

Faulty biomechanics are at the root of many ongoing knee problems.
Of course, various other diseases and orthopedic conditions may cause the same
type of chronic pain. The most likely of these possibilities need to be
considered and ruled out before a diagnosis of biomechanical knee pain is
established. Osteochondritis dissecans, a torn meniscus, and synovial effusion
are all frequently encountered in persons over age 40 with chronic knee pain.
Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and ankylosing spondylitis are a few rheumatologic
conditions which may result in sporadic or chronic knee pain.¹

When these medical entities have been eliminated as possibilities,
a biomechanical causation becomes probable. How does a person develop
"faulty biomechanics"? In fact, most of us have never received
effective instruction in how to use our bodies. We stand and sit in all kinds of
unsound postures, slouching and slumping and generally giving in to every
available force of gravity. We stand with all our body weight on one leg, neck
and shoulder muscles gripped tightly and abdominal muscles sagging and
protruding. When we sit we slump down, stressing the lower back with poorly
tolerated mechanical forces, or sit for hours with legs crossed, stressing the
lower back, hips, and knees.

Over the course of a lifetime, our bodies have continually tried
to adapt to a range of inefficient and stressful postures and habits. But
eventually no more adaptation is possible.² As a result joints,
muscles, ligaments, and tendons break down and fail. We experience this failure
as pain. And once this type of pain has started, it is not going to go away
unless the underlying causes are corrected. Specifically, the person's
biomechanics need to be restored closer to normal.

Correction of posture takes time and can only be accomplished
gradually. The key is to learn what to do, learn how to do it, and to be
working on posture every day.³ The most important thing is to
begin. Three basic biomechanical corrections are as follows: (1) When standing,
be sure to have your weight over the balls of your feet and to have your weight
evenly distributed on both legs. (2) Activate your deep abdominal muscles by
visualizing an "inner lift". (3) Have straight lines of force running
down your legs (rather than lines of force crossing at your knee, creating
torsion and tension). Visualize "straight energy" flowing from your
hip sockets, straight down through the center of your knees, straight down to
your feet, between your first and second toes.

Visualizing and implementing these three biomechanical corrections
on a daily basis represents the first series of steps toward improving knee
mechanics and reducing chronic knee pain.

Yours in
good health,

Dr. Dammel