Hi folks
I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, Brad Heineck physical therapist. Together we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet. In our opinion of course Bob
Today Brad we're going to talk about the single best thing to do for knee pain
That most people won't do and we've found this out through experience didn't we. Am I confusing you Brad?
What people won't do but want to do or, anyway, it's the best thing for them to do
I'm coming back
It's the best thing for them to do but a lot of them won't do it unless we kind of give them
Variations and then sometimes they'll do it, but you know I just experienced this with my wife
You know she started having knee pain. I made this recommendation. I'm gonna keep you hanging on just for a little bit and
She's like no no
I can't do that and so, but eventually you know what Brad she did it because the knee pain got so bad that
She did this more than almost anything helped it calm down so by the way if you are new to our channel
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Single best thing to do for knee pain is to actually take some weight off the knee
And I don't care if you have arthritis bone on bone. Even if you have a meniscus tear or something a joint irritation
It's inflamed you got to get things to calm down
Arthritis tends to flare up and it calms down
And if you go into the doctor when it's really flared up
They may talk you into some type of procedure and all you really had to do is maybe let it calm down and things aren't
Nearly as bad, right give it a chance to rest. You know specifically when
weight-bearing continually irritates it, obviously you need to walk, and then I'm going to come to the therapist and say well, let's
Take a cane and have them walk with a cane and say does the pain get better? They say yeah it feels better
Well, then I want you to walk with a cane for the next few days
And the patient will look at us and say no no that's not happening. I'm not an old person
I'm not gonna do that and Brad and I have heard this a hundred million times
And I heard it from my wife. She's like I'm not gonna use a cane. Are you kidding me and
It got worse and worse and to the point where you know what she started using the cane
But what she did actually this is what we did and we're gonna come up with some of the
alternatives for you because we realized you probably don't want to use a cane
But I did start it with this and one of the alternatives is
I started with her I said at least do it around the house I mean and
So she used the cane around the house, she used the cane around the house
And then it got so bad that she had to bring something to work so we went and got a crutch
Because a crutch seems more like an athletic injury doesn't it, yeah, you're you're definitely more cool
using the crutch it's more acceptable
But you're gonna get the questions aren't you Brad
But the thing is you're gonna get the questions anyway because if your knee pain is hurting so bad that you're going like this
People are gonna
Ask you anyway, so you might as well get it with the crutch, and you can just say
I got some knee pain, and I'm just trying to get things to calm down
You don't to get any more specific than that, one other thing I'm going to point out here
My wife got very sore very quickly
Under the arms and on the hands so we actually bought some extra
Crutch cushioning there, I don't know what they're called. I think they were called tips
Just put cushion for crutches, Google that and this comes right up. Yep. They simply go on there now ideally I
Think they go on simply Bob
You're not supposed to put weight through your armpit. No but still it rubs
yeah, no it rubs on the sides and
Definitely for the hand it worked out really good, she actually even took that and put it around the came here too, a little velcro
Yep, it works well on the cane to give a little extra cushion there, so now I'm gonna mention quickly
A lot of people, some people know this some don't, if your left knee hurts the crutch or the cane goes on the right side
It's just more of a natural pattern. Yeah. Why don't you tell what instructions you give Brad generally for this, typically I say
If the left is the
Involved side the painful knee, put it in your right hand I say and just go for a walk
Usually people will walk with the right synchronization, the crutch or the cane goes
In a mirror image or in synchronous with the opposite leg
so when you're bearing weight through that leg you're also putting a fair amount of weight through the crutch or the cane and
It gives you good stability because it's got a wide base of support, and it's funny that Brad
Had this discussion
We discovered that we both did the same thing that we always tell patients
Just go ahead and try it put it on the right side
Because if you try to tell them to do this, then they start doing
They start thinking about it, just walk and
Generally you're gonna find out that you're gonna do it and you're gonna decrease some of the pain, because the natural
Walking pattern is right hand goes with the left leg so if they don't think about it things fall into place
Now if you are a little bit older, or if you are at home
And you know there's a walker around a walker works out really good cuz you really can take stress off your knee by
Really I mean you can actually do this.
You know, but I know for most of you that they don't want to use a cane
They certainly aren't going to use a walker, a walker's way out of it, but that is something maybe in the house
When nobody's around and it makes their knee feel better. They're gonna go for it, right
we always decorate our walkers by the way we always put little signs on them and stuff like that
A little motivation there, this walker is obviously way too short for Bob
it's about right for me where the
Crease of my wrist comes to the hand hold which is the same on crutch as well as the cane
There you go, all right I'm going with another option here Brad. Um. This is one that my wife
We actually just went on vacation
And we got her a walking stick, and it worked out really good because she didn't know anybody out there
So she didn't feel uncomfortable using it, but it worked out really these are really quite nice
I was really impressed with them. They're very lightweight. Yeah, they look like carbon graphite
I like that, and you can adjust it to you know any height, and it just looks real natural
It doesn't look like you're an old person. Just looks like you're ready to go hiking. Yeah, they're stylish
Yep, and they come with different tips. They have some tips that actually are good for like if you're on the ground
That'll actually puncture through the soil
Right, so if you're not on concrete or hard surface
You're into the soil, and then they have one that's like a rocker boot almost
I'm not sure which instance you use that one
Maybe it's still on soil, but you don't want it to go through and this may be a little bit smaller
but sure anyway this you know again I see sometimes people
Walk in the neighborhoods with these and sometimes they use even both, right
You get a little extra arm
Exercise when you're using these I have a friend
That's what he uses them just so he gets a little more exercise for shoulders. Sure, yep, so that's a good alternative
The other thing we're just going to give you some general overall advice
You know you want to avoid hills when you're going through this
because you're gonna get more stress on your knee when you're going up and down hills or just uneven surfaces out in the yard where
It's not an even surface
You know and your knee's really take a lot more stress when you're going over that uneven terrain,
You want to show the stairs Brad? Yes, I do Bob
You know even stairs while you're going through this painful period keep the stress off the painful knee right now
You know you don't need to add any more stress to it. This is actually our model upstairs
We we don't want to go out to the real stairs
Cuz then it's a lot of moving, but the whole concept is the same if we're gonna go up
Let me, where's that cane Bob. We used to have one. I'll use this one so if
My left knee is a sore knee, I'm gonna show a little leg here. That's my sore knee
I'm not gonna go up with that one first, you go up with the good leg and
Just follow up with the other leg
You're taking one step at a time basically
And the thing is you go up with the good and then going down you lead with the bad
And hey, I'm the same height as Bob, it's kind of fun up here so anyways going down the steps
Here's my sore knee
I'm gonna not go down
Like this cuz that really puts a lot of stress when you lead with a good knee, it's just the opposite, down with the sore knee
One step at a time down with a sore knee if you've had a knee replacement
You've had that told to you about a hundred times before you leave the hospital
We have people remember when you're going up to heaven you leave with the good leg and when you're going down to h-e
Double toothpicks you're gonna leave with the bad leg
All right the other thing is you know you might take some ibuprofen
We had Linda kind of go on a higher dose
But you want to check with your doctor to make sure that's okay and her doctor said yeah
You can go ahead and try some ibuprofen and that helped to calm it down. I would limit your walking to some extent
And the other thing it's really important that you still want to get some movement in the knee without any stress on the knee
So this is where she actually, my wife actually got to use our Knee Glide
This is the Knee Glide which generally you know is highly recommended for people after a knee replacement
But we found out that this worked out really good for people who are just having knee pain
And it keeps movement, and this is the first time
I really discovered this Brad is you know we have it so that you can actually use it flat
Or up on the handle here like an incline, right so going uphill and what happened is when we put it flat like this
Linda's knee was very uncomfortable
Because you have to go into so much
Plantar flexion, pointing the ankle down
So it's just not a natural thing so the handle up makes a big difference
And she was comfortable and able to do that so what we do is
I just you know what's nice about this is it's really portable. You can pick it up with one finger
We just go ahead when she's watching TV
We just put it down in front of her, and she'd just sit there and watch TV
and it gets more fluid and more blood flow to the knee and
Helps it kind of smooth things out, and it just made it feel better. That's what I like
We got our semi rule around our house if you're watching TV unless
It's the news you have to be doing some activity so this works out good. Yeah exactly, exercise while you're
You know watching the tube so definitely if you're heading towards a knee replacement
You're going to want to get one of these. I have it down in our Amazon preferred page there so
We're quite proud of it, you know, it's a wonderful device yeah, we added something to the world didn't we Brad
Yes we did Bob, besides our talk
Brad remember, we can fix just about anything, except for a broken heart. There it is. But we're working on it.
I'm gonna hold it. All right. Well. I'm not doing it anymore, so
Thanks for watching