As a chiropractor, one of the most common complaints I hear about is knee pain. This is especially true as I adjust a lot of CrossFitters in my practice and that much squatting and lunging will certainly show up any knee problems.

Interestingly I’d say many people don’t see chiropractic care as addressing knee pain. Rather they see it more for spinal related issues. Whilst this may be true for some chiropractors, clients of ours will know that our approach encompasses correcting the entire skeletal frame, and thus upper limb and lower limb (including knees) are all part of what we look after.

Whilst there are numerous problems that can occur in knees, for simplicity I’ll separate knee problems into two categories; traumatic and structural. I want to emphasize that this is my personal opinion based on a decade of experience dealing with many knee problems.

Traumatic knee problems basically refer to there being damage to the tissues through direct trauma. The majority of the time this will occur through a very specific injury via sport or accident. This is the kind of thing that requires time for the tissues to heal and likely appropriate rehabilitation. This generally doesn’t fall into the scope of what we personally focus on in practice.

The other category is structural knee problems. These usually present as a slow building problem over time with no obvious cause. If left long enough it can lead to swelling and be a precursor to degeneration. They often present as a greater challenge to resolve using traditional methods. Rather than getting better with time, you notice time only seems to make it worse. This type of pain often will not respond well to direct treatment on the knee. Relief is temporary at best.

One thing I see too often in body work (chiropractic, physio, osteo etc) is that the practitioner’s focus becomes too narrow. A knee problem should require work on the knee right? In my experience structural knee issues are rarely solely a problem with the knee itself. Rather it’s compensatory.

Let me explain;

Bodies are essentially a balance of structure. Bones can shift out of optimal alignment and if your body can’t self correct, it will force the body into a compensation in order to re-balance. It just so happens that one of the body’s best compensators is the knee. They can shift inwards, outwards, lock backwards or become overly bent. They can even twist into rotation. It’s often an imbalance in the foot, hip, pelvis, or spine that forces the knee into this posture in an attempt to re-balance the skeletal frame, but it’s the knee that becomes symptomatic. Ignoring these other areas and focusing only on treating the knee is an excellent way to get nowhere.

That’s why our work involves corrections throughout the entire skeletal frame, from your neck to your feet and anywhere in between. It’s our belief that only way to truly solve symptoms and restore correct movement is by re-aligning the entire body. Do this and very often these structural knee problems resolve.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, give one of our practices a call and get your posture assessed through our methods. Like many, you might find the solution to your knee pain.

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