Women suffer from osteoarthritis of knee joints a little more often than men. Osteoarthritis usually develops after forty years, although sometimes there are cases of "young" gonar rose - after injuries or in professional athletes.
The heavier osteoarthritis of the knee joints is the most difficult in full women as well as those who have strong varicose veins on their feet.
The disease gradually begins with minor pain in the knee when walking. The most difficult for the patients is given to relegation or climbing the stairs. Even pain often occurs when a person has to get out of a seated position (from a chair or from a bed) - the first steps are usually the most painful. If you then distinguish, the pain in the knees is slightly reduced. But with long walking and then the pain return.
In peace, sitting and lying, the pain usually pass. The initial pain in osteoarthritis of the knee joints does not occur "in one second", ie they do not appear immediately, in one day. The period of intensive pain in gonarthrosis is almost necessarily a time with several months or even multi -year, non -alloyed pain that only go with a long time, load the stairs or get up from the stool.
If the pain in one day or also in a second, but before there was no pain in the knee, this applies sharply, then this usually shows a different disease or damage. For example, pinch the meniscus, the violations of the synovial bowl of the joint or the hit between the cartilage of the cart of the cartilage (cartilage excutit of the body).
With gonarthrosis, however, such problems can also occur, and then they will make the course of osteoarthritis difficult and give sharp pain. And then the knee osteoarthritis must be treated taking into account the complications mentioned above. Initially, the diagnosis of "arthrosis of the knee joint" is confirmed exactly by the gradual development of pain symptoms.
The first stage of osteoarthritis of the knee joint
Despite at times, intensive pain in the first stage of gonarthrosis keeps the knee bones their original shape and are almost not deformed. But the joint itself can look a little swollen.
Such a change in the shape of the joint can initially be associated with synovitis (synovitis is a accumulation in the knee of a pathological liquid).
If the liquids in the joint are "won" too much, it even spreads to the back of the knee to the area of the popliteal fossa. Such an accumulation of liquid is referred to as a Baker cyst. The term "baker cyst" often frightens patients because the name leads many people to the idea that we talk about the oncological process. However, this state has nothing to do with oncology and tumors. Baker's cyst is only a term that means liquid accumulation in the knee. Sometimes, when it accumulates too much of this liquid, it breaks under the knee and below on the back of the lower leg. But even in this case, nothing terrible happens: Baker's cyst is usually slightly reduced into the knee under the influence of anti -inflammatory medication or the introduction of hormonal medicines. Accordingly, Baker's cyst must be treated. But in no case do not have to operate it!
The second stage of the arthrosis of the knee joint
In the second stage of gonarthrosis, a few months later after the onset of the disease, the knee pain becomes significantly stronger. Pain is already from the minimum load or immediately afterwards.
This means that the pain is now caused by almost every movement in the affected knee. But especially the knee does after a long load, long walk and even small weights.
After a pretty long break, the pain usually goes off completely, but it will be immediately recovered during the next movement.
Around the same time, the pain is added to a crunch in the knee joint during the movements. It differs significantly in volume of hardly any audible clicks and occasionally accompanies individual movements of healthy joints.
In the course of the disease, such a crunch, which is initially weakly expressed, becomes more audible and different.
I would like to emphasize again: there is no need to confuse a rough arthritical crunch in the joint, which is almost always accompanied by pain, with harmless grinding of joints that occur in some healthy people and are not accompanied by pain.
The pain -free soft snaps of the joints can only be a result of the weak band apparatus or a result of excessive mobility of the joints or some other individual features in the structure of the joints in a specific person. Such a gentle crunch usually does not threaten anything, has no negative consequences and does not increase the risk of joint diseases in the future. Arthrosis of the knee joint, arthritis, damage to the meniscus, etc.
In parallel to strengthen the pain and the occurrence of crystal in the second stage of gonar rose, the ability to usually bend the leg in the knee usually decreases. When trying to bend the knee "to the stop", there is a sharp pain in the joint, and the full bend of the knee is simply impossible. Sometimes the knee is only bent in a corner of 90 degrees and then applies with difficulties and through pain.
At the same stage of the disease, it becomes remarkable that the joint is deformed - first this applies to bone deformations, changes in the shape of the articular bones (if you feel the knee, you can find that your bones have changed their shape as if they have been "rude").
In addition, the change in the shape of the joint is tightened by accumulation in the joint of the pathological fluid (synovitis). Synovitis at this stage of gonarthrosis is much more common and sometimes expressed much more than at the beginning of the disease in the first stage.
The third stage of the arthrosis of the knee joint
In the third stage of gonar rose, the knee pain in the knee is further reinforced. Now the knee hurts not only when moving and walking. Pain begins to disturb a person, even in peace. It is difficult for the patient to find a comfortable position in bed, to arrange an affected knee so that it does not harm. And yet a person can usually find the right position that normally fall asleep. When the destruction of the joint is combined with circulatory diseases, the joints begin to "turn" in the middle of the night, usually when they change the weather or, as a patient, "rain".
The mobility of the knee joint at this time is reduced to a minimum. The knee is already completely impossible to bend more than 90 degrees. And sometimes the knee almost doesn't bend at all. In addition, the opportunity often disappears to the end, that is, the leg. In this case, a sick person goes constantly on slightly curved legs.
Compared to the second stage, the joint in the third stage of the gonarthrosis of the joint is even more deformed, and in some cases the legs develop with "Varior" or "Valgus" legs and legs. As a result, people with similar deformations of the legs are often unstable.