Arthritis
The term arthritis is very wide and includes several types and subtypes. The most common are probably rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. But another form of inflammatory arthritis is gout, which is not triggered by the same factors. All these conditions can affect your knee because it is a highly mobile articulation with many tissues and structures potentially affected by inflammation.
So, let’s introduce four conditions that trigger knee pain in many patients.
- Rheumatoid arthritis: Arthritis is a common cause of knee pain, particularly in older adults. It is an inflammatory problem triggered by your own immune system, but there’s also a subtype of rheumatoid arthritis with negative antibodies and a more obscure cause. Rheumatoid arthritis causes degeneration of the joints and significant pain and deformation. As the disease progresses, it can form bone spurs that make the pain even worse. A bone spur is a small, bony growth that develops on the surface of a bone. They are usually harmless but can cause pain if they are large enough.
- Septic arthritis: Most types of arthritis are a chronic problem that takes a lot of time to develop. That’s not the case with septic arthritis, which is triggered by an acute infection in the knee joint. It is more common if you had a recent surgical procedure on your knee, and the symptoms are almost the same. However, septic arthritis features high fever, which is absent in other types of arthritis.
- Osteoarthritis: This is a degenerative joint disease that causes cartilage to wear down and bone to rub against bone. The most common cause of osteoarthritis is age-related wear down of the articulation, but you can also get this problem after trauma on your knee.
- Gout: This is a form of arthritis that results from a build-up of uric acid in the body. Gout is an inflammatory condition that causes redness, swelling, and pain. The symptoms are usually felt in the big toe, but other patients can also have gout in their knee, ankle, and wrist.