What Causes Pathological Knock Knees
Pathological knock knees can occur in some neurological conditions, such as cerebral palsy or spina bifida, as a result of the altered muscle pull on the bones.
So pathological knock knees may be one of the early signs of an underlying disorder. Bone diseases resulting from poor mineralisation, such as rickets, may present through large knee angles during childhood. When pathological knock knees are seen in combination with short stature and other bone and joint misalignment, a skeletal dysplasia or metabolic bone disorder may be the cause.
Obesity during adolescence is also associated with more severe knock knees, and is more commonly seen in children with flat feet and those with hypermobile joints.
Symptoms Of Knee Valgus
The most obvious symptom of knee valgus is a knock-kneed appearance of the legs. Most adults with mild cases of valgus will not experience any pain or discomfort.
A simple way to test for a valgus misalignment is to stand with your legs together and note whether your knees and ankles are touching.
If your knees are touching but there is a gap of at least 2 inches between your ankles, you most likely have knee valgus.
If left untreated, however, valgus may progress and cause symptoms such as:
- An altered gait
- Knee pain
- Low back pain
There arent too many side effects of having a mild case of knee valgus, however, if you do have knee valgus it is something you will want to correct it rather than ignore.
If left untreated, severe and longstanding cases of knee valgus can lead to meniscus tears, joint damage, and osteoarthritis .
Furthermore, correcting knee valgus can improve your movement, and as we will see later, your overall posture.
Pioneers In Knee Medicinemaking The Best Treatment
Fortunately, there is an operation for knock-knees that has gained wide acceptance as a treatment option for younger or athletic patients with osteoarthritis in the outer portion of the knee. An operation called a distal femoral osteotomy may be performed in which bone in the femur just above the knee is cut and the leg is properly aligned by the surgeon.
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Fixing Knee Valgus Is Not Simple But Form Counts
The exercises here are a great place to start and something you can do in isolation. But as you go about your day keep in mind what you are doing with your knees.
Look to correct the muscle imbalances from the hip all the way down to your knees because knee valgus isnt just about the knees.
If caught in its early stages, mild cases of knee valgus can be prevented from worsening and contributing to the development of more serious conditions like arthritis of the knee and osteoarthritis.
Remember, the advice provided in this article is not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional.
If your knee valgus is accompanied by swelling or buckling of the knee, you may have an underlying condition that is causing your knock knees.
Before attempting to correct knock knees, consult with your doctor about possible causes and treatment options for your knee valgus.
Are Knock Knees Normal
Temporarily knocked knees are part of a standard developmental growth stage for most children. This usually corrects itself as the child grows. Knock knees that persist beyond six years of age, are severe or affect one leg significantly more than the other may be a sign of knock-knee syndrome.
Most children experience in their legs as they grow. Children are typically until they begin walking at around 12 to 18 months. By about 2 to 3 years of age, their legs have usually begun to angle inward, making them knock-kneed. During normal growth phases, the child’s legs will straighten out by age 7 to 8.
Knock knees that remain outside of these normal developmental growth patterns may be caused by disease, infection or other conditions. If the angle of the legs from hip to foot falls outside normal patterns, worsens over time, or is present on only one side of the body, this suggests a person has a more serious form of knock knees, and further evaluation by an orthopedic specialist may be necessary. Surgery may be needed to treat the condition.
X-rays: preoperative image showing knock knee. postoperative image showing leg alignment after surgical correction and removal of metal plates.
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B Improving The Arch Support:
***READ THIS ***: It is vital that you understand how to do the Short Foot exercise properly.
It will be required to be activated during the exercises as shown in Step 4: Combining it all together.
a) Short foot exercise
b)Wall push
Instructions
- Lift your hip to ~90 degrees and place the side of that leg against a wall.
- Activate short foot exercise on the foot that is planted on the floor.
c) Squat
- Repeat on the other side.
What Causes Knock Knees In Adulthood
There are a number of different reasons for knock knee deformity in adults.
The number one cause in most cases is genetics. If you have knock knees there is a good chance a family member has the same problem.
If you are knock kneed due to genetics the inward angle will be present in both legs.
Meanwhile, other common knock knee causes include:
- A fracture or some sort of injury to one or more of the bones in the legs.
- Being obese may not be a direct cause of this condition but it can definitely additional pressure on your knees and cause the inward curvature to become more severe.
- Knee arthritis is a very common cause of knock knees in adulthood. As the deterioration in the knee joints progress it causes your knees to turn inward. As a matter of fact, other than genetics osteoarthritis is the most common cause of knock knees in adults.
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Next Steps And What You Need To Know
Patients must keep in mind that undergoing multiple surgeries to yield desired results and reach their body goals is a realistic possibility. Because each patients experience with lipedema is unique, treatment and recovery time will vary from individual to individual. Also, optimal treatment trajectory is contingent on the stage of a lipedema patients knock knees disorder. To learn more about knock knees and discover a viable, life-changing treatment option for you, please contact our Total Lipedema Care office to schedule a personal consultation with Dr. Schwartz. Expect a full medical evaluation and health history discussion to best assess your customized treatment plan that will ensure successful lipedema management and potential reversal of knock knees.
To learn more, please contact our Beverly Hills, California office to schedule a consultation with any of our highly trained specialists.
How Is Knock Knee Treated
For mild cases of knock knee in children or adolescents, bracing may reposition the knees. When this does not work, or if the patient is an adult at the time of diagnosis, a knee-realignment osteotomy is done to prevent or delay the need for .
If knock knee is caused by an underlying disease or infection, that condition will be addressed before any orthopedic correction begins. Treatment for mild cases of knock knee in children or adolescents may include braces to help bones grow in the correct position.
If a gradual correction does not occur, surgery may be recommended. In the growing child, guided-growth minimal-incision surgery may be used to encourage the leg to gradually grow straight.
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Can You Lose Weight Or Change Your Activities To Reduce The Stress On Your Knees
There are things like if you have a high body mass index, meaning you weigh a lot. If you weigh a lot, thats more stress going across that joint. That means higher breakdown of the cartilage, faster progression to arthritis. So a weight loss program is definitely going to be beneficial.
If you already have arthritis and you want to slow down the progression in general, sometimes you got to take in consideration the activities that youre doing. If youre doing a lot of excessive pounding on the knees type of activities, you may want to look at, say, something thats low impact, maybe elliptical, swimming, biking. Those are going to be better for your knees just because of the less stress across the knee, especially across where this alignment, this mechanical axis is occurring across that joint. So you always want to take those things into consideration.
Learn How To Fix Bow Legs And Knock Knees Without The Need Of Surgery
Have you had enough of crooked wonky legs?
If so, fixing them will be one of your up most priorities.
Im going to show you what causes bow legs and what causes knock knees while also showing you some of the best ways in which you can improve them both.
Although having bow legs or knock knees is not necessarily a postural problem, I feel both have enough significance to include when it comes down to correct postural alignment.
Both are an incorrect alignment in your legs and cause your knees to take on added pressure, which can lead to decreased movement capabilities, arthritis and potentially even pain.
As you know, your legs carry whatever is above them, they support everything, the lower down your leg means more weight is carried on that part of your body.
If you have either bow legs or knock knees, both of which cause added pressure on your knees, you should look to take steps to improve them in order to release this added pressure and prevent further damage being done.
While bow legs and knock knees are most common in young children, older children or adults can be affect by them too.
What Youll Learn Quick Links
Surgery is usually only necessary in severe cases, fortunately, in the cases where it is not severe, there are things you can do to help straighten these issues out.
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Fixing Bow Legs And Knock Knees
Believe it or not, both of these conditions could possibly be treated at home, naturally and without surgery.
You might think that all cases of bow legs and knock knees require surgery on your legs to fix but this isnt always the case. Surgery is usually only necessary in severe cases but, where the condition is not so severe, there are things you can do to improve them.
Below you can find some exercises to perform for each of these conditions although, ultimately, the aim and process is the same, the goal is to straighten your legs.
Permanent Remedy for Bow Legs and Knock Knees Without Surgery
A Releases Of Lateral Hamstring
When the lateral hamstring is tight, it causes external rotation of the lower bone . This can cause the knee to cave in relative to the tibia.
Instructions:
- Whilst sitting on the floor, place a massage ball underneath the outside part of the back of your knee.
- Proceed to apply pressure through the ball.
- Straighten and bend your knee.
- Continue for 1 minute.
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Talk To Your Doctor About Your Knock Knees
If you have knock knees, talk to your doctor about possible ways to correct the problem. Depending on the underlying cause for your knock knees, you may benefit from specialized leg braces, custom insoles, or corrective surgery. Additional exercise and physical therapy may also realign knees and strengthen the surrounding muscles to hold the joints in place.
Do They Have To Be Treated
It is usually parental concern for the way a child looks when standing or walking that sparks initial review by a health professional. Children presenting with physiological knock knees do not require treatment or ongoing monitoring, as they will grow out of it with time.
Conservative treatments may be beneficial such as exercises and weight loss programs to reduce obesity and improve knee movement in children, or knee braces and foot orthoses for painful osteoarthritis associated with knock knees in adults. However, these interventions require more scientific evidence to support their use as there currently isnt much.
Children with severe or worsening pathological knock knees might need orthopaedic surgery to correct their knee alignment, particularly in the presence of persistent pain or disability, regardless of the underlying cause.
There are many operations for pathological knock knees. A hemiepiphysiodesis is a type of guided growth operation involving the placement of staples or a plate on the inside part of the knee to slow down growth while the outside part of the knee continues to grow. This then corrects the knee angle to a straighter position. A study reporting outcomes two years after this operation showed correction in 34 of 38 knock knees.
Orthopaedic surgery is rarely needed. For most kids, knock knees are just a normal part of growing up.
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But The Knees Look Like The Problem So Why Are They Not
If someone has, for example, hurt their hip or sprained an ankle especially when they were younger , this can mechanically change the orientation of the knee. As shown by those research studies mentioned below, if theres something not comfortable with the hip then we need to alter where our force goes through, and the inside of the knee seems to be a common scenario to open up. The good thing is we know with some tailored awareness and movement practice we can re-train the joints to work together with the rest of the body. This is what we see in clinic and in our own bodies.
Who Is An Ideal Candidate For A Knee Osteotomy Surgery
If you are younger than 60 years old or your osteoarthritis is limited to only one compartment of your knee, an osteotomy might be beneficial for you.
Good candidates for this surgery must fit the following criteria:
- Significant pain and disability
- Able to fully straighten the knee and bend it at least 90 degrees
- X-rays showing the involvement of only one side of the knee joint
- A body mass index lower than 30
- The ability to participate in physical therapy and rehabilitationrehabilitation after this surgery is lengthy and difficult
You might find lasting relief with an osteotomy, but most people will have a knee osteotomy as a means to delay eventual knee replacement surgery. An osteotomy around the knee is expected to be effective for up to ten years, after which another procedureusually a knee replacementmight be necessary.
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What Is Guided Growth Surgery
Guided Growth Surgery may be an option to correct bone alignment in children who are still growing. It is performed by orthopedic surgeons. Females are said to stop growing around the age of 13-14 and males at the age of 15-16. An orthopedic surgeon can roughly determine how much growth is remaining based off of X-Ray.
This surgery must be done before a childs bones have stopped growing in order to be effective. It works by temporarily implanting a metal device into one side of the bones growth plate. It temporarily stops the growth of that side which allows the other side to catch-up. This results in deformity correction over time. The implant is then typically removed and the bones continue to grow normally.
The scar from the surgery is generally pretty minimal as the incision made is about a couple of inches in length.
Hospital Stay & Recovery Time
Typically, guided growth surgery can be performed on an outpatient basis. Meaning, patients can go home the same day. Most will be able to walk unassisted after two weeks and return to normal activities, such as sports, by about four weeks.
What Are The Overall Success Rates Of Femoral Osteotomy
Overall, we have noted that 70-80% of patients have a significant improvement in their symptoms and knee function. Many can return to recreational sports that allow an active lifestyle for many years after surgery. The majority can do their daily activities without problems. However, we always advise our patients that if there is already arthritis in knee joint that it will progress. About 20% of patients will not have a long-term benefit and may require a partial or total knee replacement.
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Things No One Ever Tells You About Getting A Knee Replacement
Heres what you need to know thats not in the brochure: 1. You might not be a good candidate.A study published last year by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond questioned the value of knee replacement for some of the people rushing to get it. After analyzing data from a large study of men and women who had the operation, the researchers found that fully one-third of them were not actually good candidates for the surgery, which is why they got only a very modest benefita 2-point improvement on a common measure of knee function, compared with a 20-point improvement for people who started out with really bad knees.
“Pain that doesnt go away and moderate to severe arthritis are necessary for a knee replacement to do its job,” Lajam says. “If you have the surgery, but its actually a problem of nerve pain, hip pain, or circulation, its not going to help you.” The advice here is not to wait until your knees are completely destroyed before seeking surgery, but to make sure that youve tried other measures first and that you meet both criteriaconsistent pain and advanced arthritis.