Women suffer from arthrosis of the knee joints a little more often than men. Arthrosis usually develops after forty years, although sometimes there are cases of "young" gonarthrosis - after injuries or among professional athletes.
The more severe arthrosis of the knee joints is the most difficult in full women, as well as in those who have strong varicose veins on the legs.
The disease begins gradually, with little knee pain when walking. The most difficult for patients is given to the descent or climbing the stairs. Even pain often occurs when one has to get out of a sitting position (from a chair or bed) - the first steps are usually the most painful. Then, if you get away, the knee pain is slightly reduced. But with a long walk and after that the pain returns again.
At rest, sitting and lying down, the pain usually passes. Initial pain for arthrosis of the knee joints does not occur "for a second", that is, they do not appear immediately, for one day. The period of intense pain in gonarthrosis is almost necessarily preceded by a period of multi -month or even perennial leg pain, which occurs exclusively with long walking, loading, walking stairs or getting out of the chair.
If the pain has occurred sharply, for one day or, moreover, for one second, but before there is no pain in the knee, this usually shows any other disease or damage. For example, to pinch the meniscus, the disturbance of the synovial sheath of the joint, or the impact between the cartilage of the knee of the cartilage piece (cartilage body).
However, with gonarthrosis, similar problems can occur and then they will complicate the course of arthrosis, add acute pain. And then knee arthrosis will have to be treated, taking into account the above complications. But initially the diagnosis of "knee joint arthrosis" was confirmed precisely by the gradual development of the symptoms of pain.
The first stage of knee arthrosis joint
Despite the sometimes intense pain, at the beginning, at the first stage of gonarthrosis, the knee bones retain their original shape and are hardly deformed. But the joint herself may seem a little swollen.
Such a change in the shape of the joint may initially be associated with synovitis (synovitis is a accumulation in the knee of pathological fluid).
If the fluids in the joint are "acquired" too much, it spreads even at the back of the knee, to the area of the poppy. A similar accumulation of fluid is called the bakery cyst. The term "Baker's cyst" often scares patients, as the name leads many people to the idea that we are talking about the oncological process. However, this condition has nothing to do with oncology and tumors. Baker's cyst is only a term that means the accumulation of fluid in the knee. Sometimes, when it accumulates too much of this fluid, it breaks under the knee and below - on the back of the lower leg. But even in this case, nothing terrible happens: Baker's cyst is usually easily reduced under the influence of anti -inflammatory drugs or the introduction of hormonal drugs in the knee. Accordingly, Baker's cyst should be treated. But in no case is you need to manage it!
The second stage of knee arthrosis joint
In the second stage of gonarthrosis, several months later than the onset of the disease, knee pain becomes clear. The pain already appears from the minimum load or immediately after it.
That is, the pain is now caused by almost every movement in the affected knee. But especially the knee hurts after a long load, a long walk, carrying even small weights.
After a long break, the pain usually passes completely, but during the next movement it immediately reappears.
At about the same time, a crunch is added to the pain to the knee joint during the movements. It differs significantly in volume from barely sound clicks, occasionally accompanies the individual movements of healthy joints.
With the advancement of the disease, such a crunch, first expressed weakly, becomes more sound and distinct.
I want to emphasize once again: it is not necessary to confuse a rough arthritic crunch in the joint, almost always accompanied by pain, with a harmless crunch of joints that occur in some healthy people and are not accompanied by pain.
The painless soft destruction of the joints can only be a consequence of the weak ligament apparatus or a consequence of excessive mobility of the joints or some other individual characteristics in the structure of the joints in a person. Usually such a soft crisis does not threaten anything, has no negative effects and does not increase the risk of joint disease in the future. Arthrosis of the knee joint, arthritis, damage to the meniscus, etc.
In parallel with the strengthening of the pain and the onset of crystall, in the second stage of gonarthrosis the ability to usually bend the legs in the knee decreases. When you try to bend the knee to the stop, there is acute pain in the joint and more often the complete bending of the knee becomes simply impossible. Sometimes the knee is bent only to an angle of 90 degrees and then goes with difficulty and through pain.
At the same stage of the disease, it becomes noticeable that the joint is deformed - first, it applies to bone deformities, changes in the shape of the bones of the joints (when you feel your knee, you can notice that its bones have changed their shape, which has become a wider and "rough").
In addition, the change in the form of the joint is worsened by the accumulation in the joint of the pathological fluid (synovitis). Synovitis at this stage of gonarthrosis occurs much more frequently, and sometimes it is much more expressed than at the beginning of the disease, at its first stage.
The third stage of knee arthrosis joint
In the third stage of gonarthrosis, knee pain in the knee is further increased. Now the knee hurts not only when moving and walking. The pain begins to bother a person even at rest. It is difficult for the patient to find a comfortable position in the bed, arrange an affected knee so that it does not hurt. Still, finding the right position, one can usually fall asleep. Although, if the destruction of the joint is combined with blood disorders, then the joints begin to "twist" in the middle of the night, usually with the time or, like the patients themselves, "raining".
Currently, the mobility of the knee joint is reduced to a minimum. The knee is now completely impossible to bend stronger than 90 degrees. And sometimes the knee is almost not bent at all. In addition, the possibility often disappears to the end, that is, straighten your feet. In this case, a sick person walks on slightly bent legs all the time.
Compared to the second stage, in the third stage of gonarthrosis of the joint, the joint is even more determined, and in some cases the "variant" or "valgus" legs develop-the legs develop-the leafy acquires a shaped or X-shaped shape. As a result, people with similar deformities of the feet often become unstable.