Knee Pain Relief Tips Including Hot and Cold Therapy
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Is hot/cold therapy an effective way to help relieve knee pain and other pains throughout the body? Here’s some info about hot and cold therapy as well as some other techniques to help relieve knee pain.
While there is some debate on the issue, in general, I like to use hot therapy to help warm up and loosen the muscles before exercise, especially if there is pain and doing a traditional warm up might be too difficult. Then cold therapy afterwards to help reduce inflammation and help calm down irritation. Hot and/or cold therapy should only be done about 10-15 minutes at a time.
Once the knee is warmed up, it should be easier and more comfortable to stretch. Calf stretches, hamstring stretches, IT band stretches, and quad stretches using a strap are a great way to loosen up the muscles around the knee.
Then for exercises, some gentle isometrics exercises are great to start with. Quad sets and hamstring sets will help strengthen the muscles without the big movements that might be painful.
Finally a bridge is a great exercise to help strength your hamstrings and glutes.
A stiff knee can be caused by tight muscles around the knee, injuries, or even arthritis. Some simple stretches to loosen up the muscles around the knee should help.
An achy knee is often caused by tightness or weakness in the muscles around the knee. These knee stretches and exercises should help relieve the knee pain.
A TENS / EMS Unit can be a great tool for helping to reduce and relieve knee pain. It can also help retrain weak or injured muscles. Here are a few wireless & wired pad placements to help relieve knee pain.
Peripheral neuropathy is basically when you have damage to your peripheral nerves from either a trauma or disease. This can cause your hands and/or feet become numb and tingly. I'll focus on the feet/legs for this video.
With Shin Splints, pain can be felt on the front (anterior shin splints) or on the inside/medial ankle (posterior shin splints). Using a massage gun on the painful area, as well as stretches & exercises, can help with pain relief.
With a total knee replacement, it’s important to do physical therapy on the knee (prehab) BEFORE the knee replacement because the stronger and more flexible the knee is before surgery, the better the recovery and outcomes will be.
The ACL helps keep the knee stable, and prevents it from sliding forward. When you have a torn ACL, your knee can become painful and unstable. These stretches and exercises are for a non-operative or pre-operative injury.
Percussive Massage Therapy for knee pain relief is a new rehab treatment that uses fast, soft pulses over a short amount of time to get deep down into the muscle fibers.
This knee pain relief routine can help strengthen and loosen up the muscles around the knee and hip area. These knee exercises are done in real time, so it’s easy to follow along with the routine.