Knee Pain Specialist

Knee pain can be recent onset, “acute”, or long-standing, “chronic”.  Acute knee pain can come from injuries that involve recent injury of the meniscus or cartilage inside the knee or ligaments in and around the knee. Chronic knee pain is often due to more gradual wear and tear that accumulates slowly over time leading to joint swelling and eventual arthritis.  Thankfully both are acute and chronic knee pain is very treatable. 

Once we have ruled out any underlying disease or problem, the most common causes of knee pain are usually mechanical in nature. Other than trauma from injuries or over-use, another commonly overlooked factor in knee pain, are changes in the function of the lower back, pelvis, and hip causing stress on the knee. If these areas are not well balanced it changes how we bear weight on the knee. Improper weight bearing on the knee joint over time is a common cause of knee injury and pain. 

With elbow tendon pain the damage can become so severe that it is difficult to hold up a glass of water or even do the normal activities of daily life such as buttoning your coat or lifting your purse or briefcase. The good news is there are some excellent treatments, that don't require surgery and can resolve the problem fairly quickly.

At our office, we take a holistic approach to knee problems. We treat your entire body, not just at the site of injury. Our process begins with a consultation which allows us to determine if we are in fact the right specialist to help you. If we are not, we will be sure to refer you to the right people. If we deem that we can help you, you will quickly move on to the examination. During this examination, we will perform a range of orthopedic, neurological, and musculoskeletal tests in order to find out what is the problem. We may perform X-rays or a high-resolution ultrasound examination to help define the problem better. We may decide that an MRI is necessary and refer you to a local radiology center. Once we have all this information, we will sit down with you and discuss the findings in as much detail as you like.

From here we create a personalized treatment plan, designed to help you recover, naturally if possible. Our treatment approach may include manual therapy by an Osteopathic Medical Doctor, Chiropractic adjustments to the joints of the body particularly the lower limb, Physical Therapy with custom rehab exercises and stretches, and maybe even Acupuncture. We may also suggest prescription medication or an injection to relieve the pain faster and help you heal. Last but not least, we examine lifestyle factors and habits that may have worsened the problem and help you make modifications as necessary to prevent future problems.

We believe we have one of the most comprehensive approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of knee pain you can find anywhere. We combine the best of our multiple disciplines to get faster pain relief that lasts. If you look at some of the comments our patients make, it looks like they agree with our approach!

Without this step, we have seen many patients fail to get better and get worse with treatments that inadvertently hurt the tendon, not helping it. 

Note: We find patients who have been told to stretch, massage, and exercise their “tendonitis” only to complain that they feel worse after treatment. Why? If you have a small tear not just inflammation (tendonitis) then pulling on the tear either through stretching or exercise can cause make it larger. We avoid these mistakes by imaging the tendon first before we start therapy. Tears are more common than you'd think with elbow tendon pain which may be one of the reasons why so many people fail to get better even with treatment like Physical Therapy. 

One of our favorite tools for treating Golfer’s or Tennis Elbow is “PRP”, which stands for Platelet Rich Plasma injection. This is a non-invasive, in-office treatment, where we take small quantities of blood through a simple blood draw technique and concentrate the number of naturally occurring platelet cells. We then inject the “Platelet Rich Plasma” directly into the tear under ultrasound imaging guidance, in essence using the power of these healing cells to “seal” the tendon injury without surgery. (Platelets produce growth factors and other compounds that stimulate repair when they are placed in an area of tissue injury. They are the same lifesaving cells that stop the bleeding and repair a cut in your skin when you hurt yourself). 

Thankfully PRP does not generally require many visits either, usually, 1 - 3 to three treatments are enough to manage most elbow tendon issues that we see.  The result is that our patients can get back to the things to things they love quickly, even when they have been in pain for long periods of time and failed other forms of treatments. 

The result is our shoulder treatment programs have been very successful at returning most of our patients back to normal active lifestyles without surgery.  We think our unique way of combining different disciplines all focused on getting you better faster, is what makes us special.  From the comments that our patients make, they think so too!

We think our unique way of combining different disciplines all focused on getting you to better faster is what makes us special. We believe we have one of the most comprehensive approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of neck pain you can find anywhere. We combine the best of our multiple disciplines to get faster pain relief that lasts. If you look at some of the comments our patients make, it looks like they agree with our approach!