Knee pain can not only ruin your day, but it can also change the course of your life. It can stop you from doing the things you love most, and if not treated properly, it can make those changes long-lasting, or even permanent. If you are going through knee-pain that is starting to impact your life, you should make sure that you treat it properly, and if it doesn’t get better, go in to see your physician. Here are some of the best ways to treat the pain, and hopefully give you your quality of life back.
Best Ways to Handle Knee Pain
First and foremost, you need to make sure that you rest. After any type of knee injury, you want to make sure that you stay off of it for a little while. If possible, rest with your knee raised up just a little bit, as this will help keep the swelling down. Ideally you should put some ice on your knee for the first 24-48 hours to keep the swelling down as much as possible. After 48 hours, you should apply heat, but if you are still experiencing just as much knee pain as you were right away after the injury, or more pain, you need to contact your doctor and get seen.
You should also wrap your knee to reduce the pain and swelling that it is likely to experience. Now, this should not be so tight as to cut off circulation or cause swelling in other areas around the wrap, typically below, and you should not consider this wrap to be enough to brace the knee for normal use. You need to take it easy and allow your knee to heal properly. If you don’t, you’ll likely be stuck with knee pain for a much longer time than you would have if it healed right the first time around.