Throughout your body, there are more than 150 small, fluid-filled sacs that provide protection by preventing friction between your bones and other tissues. Called bursa sacs, these structures can go from protective to harmful when bursitis strikes, which can lead to no small amount of pain.
As your largest joints, each of your knees contains around 12 of these bursa sacs. And as some of the most active joints in your body, knee bursitis is fairly common. For example, up to 10% of runners develop knee bursitis.
While Dr. William Schell is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, our practice also provides nonsurgical care for issues like bursitis, which is a common road to knee pain.
In this blog post, we dive into some of the treatment options for knee bursitis, which can help you move again without nagging pain.
Before we get into your treatment options for knee bursitis, we want to emphasize the importance of first getting the right diagnosis for your knee pain.
Knee joints are complex, and there are a lot of things that can lead to knee pain. So, the first step to treating knee bursitis is to confirm that bursitis is, in fact, what's behind your knee problem.
Dr. Schell is an expert in knees, and he can quickly zero in on the underlying issue so that we make sure our efforts are hitting the right target.
This is also important with knee bursitis because sometimes it’s related to an infection in the fluid inside the bursa. If Dr. Schell suspects this to be the case, he can aspirate and test some of the fluid. If there’s infection, he might prescribe antibiotics.
Anytime you see the suffix -itis, it implies inflammation. So, knee bursitis describes inflammation in one or more of the bursa sacs located in your knee.
Some great at-home strategies for addressing knee bursitis include:
To make it easier to remember, you can follow the RICE method, which stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation.
You should also avoid anything that puts direct pressure on your knee, such as kneeling.
In many cases, these efforts are enough and your knee bursitis should slowly subside over a couple of weeks.
If your at-home efforts are falling short and you’re still struggling with knee pain, it’s a good idea to come see us. In these cases, we can get more aggressive with a corticosteroid injection. These injections contain steroids that tackle the inflammation, as well as a local anesthetic that can bring you near-immediate relief from the discomfort.
If we found an infection inside the bursa and the antibiotics aren’t working, we may have to fully drain your knee during a quick in-office procedure. Rest assured, your body will produce more fluid to refill the bursa sac.
For experienced and skilled help in resolving your knee bursitis, please contact our New York City office — which is located on Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side — to schedule an appointment today.
