Pain on the side of your knee is a common problem I see in the clinic. It’s funny, most people come to me worried about their meniscus or arthritis. But no one is talking about the Pes Anserine. The Pes Anserine is where many important muscles & tendons attach on the inside of your knee. More often your inside of the knee pain is from the Pes Anserine and not from your meniscus or arthritis. Let’s dive into what I see most in my clinic and talk about what you can do to treat pain on the inside of your knee.
The Pes Anserine – The Tennis Elbow of The Knee
Based on my experience treating 1000’s of knees the Pes Anserine area is an under diagnosed cause of inside the knee pain.
Here’s a picture of the muscles and tendons on the inside of your knee That make up the Pes Anserine Area.
The Pes Anserine Bursa is a bursa that surrounds 3 tendons of the leg. A bursa is a thin, slippery, sac-like film that contains a small amount of fluid. A bursa is found between bones and soft tissues in and around joints. It cushions and protects joint structures and stops them from rubbing against each other. If a bursa becomes inflamed and irritated, it’s known as bursitis. This is the meeting place of the sartorius, gracilis and semitendinosus muscles. These three muscles work to flex the knee and extend the hip. All 3 of the muscles that make up the Pes Anserine are unique in that they cross both the hip and knee, meaning they can move both joints (hip and knee).
Try This To See If Your Pain is from the Pes Anserine
One of the easiest ways to see if this area is part of your inside the knee pain picture is to press around! Just feel around the inside of your knee joint line. You can easily palpate the joint line of the knee and then 2 to 3 inches below the knee joint on the inside of the lower leg.
The Pes Tendons Get Irritated with Repetitive Motion / Knee Flexion.
When inflamed, the pain increases with exercise or climbing stairs but if there is excessive inflammation, pain can be at rest with the knee flexed, such as in sitting position.
Treatment Options for Pain on the Inside of My Knee?
Acupuncture & Dry Needling for Pain on the Inside of My Knee?
Acupuncture & dry needling work by treating the affected muscles and reducing tightness. Since there are 3 muscles that make up this painful area, we can directly treat these muscles with acupuncture & dry needling.
The best way to diagnose and determine what needs to be treated is with a thorough hands on functional physical examination. We will target the specific pain generators that are causing your issue and help to re-spark your bodies own healing ability. Acupuncture & Dry Needling work to restore function, increase blood flow and speed up the healing process.
Prolozone Injection for Pain on the Inside of My Knee?
Prolozone is one of my favorite treatments for Pain on the Inside of the Knee because it works on so many different levels. There are 3 main contributors when it comes to pain:
1) Structural issues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, etc) 2) Biochemical changes (inflammation, and the substances irritated nerves secrete)3) Neurological (this includes irritated nerves, called neurogenic inflammation) Prolozone injections treat all 3 contributors of pain. Prolozone is an all natural injection of vitamins, anti-inflammatory Traumeel and Ozone.
This helps reset your nerves, calm down inflammation, and restart the healing process by jump starting your cells. If you are a good candidate for. Prolozone Injections, our success rate is between 70-90% after 4-8 treatments. I haven’t seen a more effective treatment for pain on the inside of the knee than Prolozone.
The Bottom Line
Dealing with pain on the inside of your knee is a real hassle.
Over the counter medications aren’t effective, muscle relaxers are just a bandaid and your orthopedic doctor won’t have any good interventions they can perform to help reduce the discomfort.
The good news is you don’t have to go down the path of endless doctors visits from specialist to specialist, months of physical therapy and hassle. There are better, more effective treatment options! The real question is what’s the root cause of yourpain on the inside of your knee?
A thorough examination by a skilled hands on practitioner like Dr. Josh Hanson, DACM can help to determine the cause of your pain. With effective direct interventions like acupuncture, dry needling and prolozone injections, Dr. Josh Hanson, DACM can help a wide variety of problems. You don’t have to live with your pain!
