Women suffer from arthrosis of the knee joints a little more often than men. Arthosis usually develops after forty years, although sometimes there are cases of "young" gonartrosis - after injuries or between professional athletes.
The heaviest arthrosis of the knee joints is the most difficult in full women, as well as in those who have a strong varicose vein on their legs.
The disease gradually begins, with a little knee pain when walking. The most difficult thing for patients is given to the descent or climb the stairs. Even pain often occurs when a person needs to get out of a sitting position (from a chair or a bed) - the first steps are usually the most painful. So if you have fun, the pain in the knees are slightly reduced. But with a long walk and after, the pains come back again.
At rest, sitting and lying down, pain usually passes. The initial pain for the arthrosis of the knee joints does not occur "in a second", that is, they do not appear immediately, in one day. The period of intense pain in gonartrosis is almost necessarily preceded by a period of perennial pain not the perennial legs that occur exclusively with long walk, loading, walking up the stairs or getting up from the chair.
If the pain rises abruptly, in a day or, moreover, in a second, but before there were no knee pain, then this usually indicates some other disease or damage. For example, to pinch the meniscus, violation of the synovial shell of the joint or hit between the cartilage of the knee of the piece of cartilage (eccultation of the body cartilage).
However, with gonartrosis, these problems can also occur and therefore they will complicate the course of arthrosis, they will add severe pain. And then the arthrosis of the knee must be treated, taking into account the above complications. But initially the diagnosis of "arthrosis of the knee joint" is confirmed precisely by the gradual development of the symptoms of pain.
The first phase of the arthrosis of the knee joint
Despite sometimes, the intensive pain, at the beginning, in the first phase of gonartrosis, the knee bones maintain their original shape and are not almost deformed. But the articulation itself may seem a little swollen.
Such a change in the form of the joint can initially be associated with a synovitis (Sinovite is an accumulation in the knee of a pathological fluid).
If the fluids in the joint are "earned" too much, it also spreads on the back of the knee, in the area of the Poplitea Fossa. Such accumulation of liquid is called baker cyst. The term "baker cyst" often scares patients, since the name bears many people to the idea that we are talking about the oncological process. However, this state has nothing to do with oncology and tumors. Baker's cyst is just an accumulation of fluid meaning in the knee. Sometimes, when it accumulates too much of this liquid, it breaks under the knee and below, on the back of the lower part of the leg. But even in this case, nothing terrible happens: Baker's cyst is generally easily reduced under the influence of anti -inflammatory drugs or the introduction of hormonal drugs in the knee. As a result, Baker's cyst must be treated. But in no case is it not necessary to manage it!
The second phase of the arthrosis of the knee joint
In the second phase of Gonartrosis, a few months after the beginning of the disease, knee pain clearly becomes stronger. Pain occurs already from the minimum load or immediately after.
That is, the pain is now caused by almost all the movements in the interested knee. But above all the knee hurts after a long load, a long walk, also wearing small weights.
After a fairly long rest, the pain usually passes completely, but during the next movement it recovers immediately.
In the same period, a creak in the knee joint during movements is added to pain. It differs significantly in the volume from clicks barely audible, occasionally accompanying the individual movements of healthy joints.
As the disease progresses, such a creak, expressed first weakly, becomes more audible and distinct.
I want to emphasize once again: there is no need to confuse a rough arthritic crunch in the articulation, almost always accompanied by pain, with harmless crew of joints that occur in some healthy people and not accompanied by pain.
The painless soft herbing of the joints can only be a consequence of the weak bonding system, or a consequence of the excessive mobility of the joints or some other individual characteristics in the structure of the joints in a certain person. Generally, such a soft crisis does not threaten anything, has no negative consequences and does not increase the risk of joint diseases in the future. Arthrosis of the knee joint, arthritis, damage to the meniscus, etc.
Parallel to the strengthening of pain and the appearance of crystal, in the second phase of gonartrosis, the ability to normally bend the leg in the knee decreases. When trying to bend the knee "to the stop", there is severe pain in the joint and more often the full flexion of the knee becomes simply impossible. Sometimes the knee is folded only at an angle of 90 degrees, so it goes with difficulty and through pain.
In the same stage of the disease, it becomes evident that the articulation is deformed - first of all, this applies to bone deformations, changes in the form of the joint bones (when you feel the knee, it can be seen that its bones have changed their shape, they have become wider and "rude").
In addition, the change in the form of the joint is aggravated by the accumulation in the articulation of the pathological fluid (synovite). Sinovite in this phase of gonartrosis takes place much more often and sometimes expressed much more than at the beginning of the disease, at its first stage.
The third phase of the arthrosis of the knee joint
In the third phase of gonartrosis, knee pain in the knee is further intensified. Now the knee hurts not only when he moves and walks. The pain begins to disturb a person even at rest. It is difficult for the patient to find a comfortable position in bed, arrange an interested knee so that he does not hurt. Still, finding the right position, a person usually can fall asleep. Although, if the destruction of the joint is combined with circulatory disorders, the joints begin to "torch" in the middle of the night, usually when they change time or, as patients themselves, "it rains".
The mobility of the knee joint at this moment is reduced to a minimum. The knee is already completely impossible to bend stronger than 90 degrees. And sometimes the knee does not fold at all. In addition, the opportunity often disappears until the end, that is, it straightens the leg. In this case, a sick person always walks on slightly bent legs.
Compared to the second stage, in the third phase of the gonartrosis of the joint, the articulation is even more deformed and in some cases the deformation of the "Varor" or "valgus" legs develop-legs acquire a form of or or in the shape of the X. consequently, people with similar deformations of the legs often become unstable.