Knee Pain Home Remedies

The knee is the strongest of the 187 joints in the human body, absorbing a force equivalent to 4 ;1/2 times your body weight just when you walk down the stairs. Yet despite its power, the knee is also the joint that typically causes the most suffering.

As Americans have become more active, sports-related knee injuries have become more common. But you don't have to be an athlete to experience knee pain. Automobile accidents commonly involve knee injuries. So do falls. Some knee pain stems from overuse or age-related wear and tear on the joint. The most common cause of knee pain is osteoarthritis, a degenerative wearing down of the cartilage cushions in the joint, causing bones to scrape painfully against each other.

In large measure because of osteoarthritis, which is much more common in people over age 45, knee pain tends to be a particular problem for older Americans. One study reported that 18 percent of men and 24 percent of women over 60 experienced knee pain on most days. The oldest Americans had the highest rates of knee pain, with 24 percent of men and 30 percent of women ages 85 to 90 having pain in their knees.

Part of the problem is design, or rather the inability of knee design to change whenever human beings place new demands on it. "The knee, without question, is ill-suited for the jobs we ask it to do," says James M. Fox, M.D. It wasn't designed for football, soccer, automobile accidents, carpentering, plumbing, or squatting and kneeling all day long.

If your knees ache because of overuse or abuse, here are a few things you can do to make amends.