What is joint pain?
Joint pain is an uncomfortable feeling in your joints or places in your body that connect two or more bones together. Joints consist of muscles, ligaments, bones, tendons, and cartilage. They include your:
- Neck
- Spine
- Shoulders
- Elbows
- Wrists
- Fingers
- Hips
- Knees
- Ankles
- Toes
While joint pain is common, you don’t have to live with it. See the COSMO team at the first sign of severe or long-lasting joint pain.
What does it feel like to have joint pain?
If you have injured joints, it can feel like dull aching pain or sharp pain. You may experience swelling, stiffness, warmth, redness, decreased joint range of motion, pain with movement, or difficulty walking or jumping. With arthritis, you might notice joint twisting or disfigurement.
What are common causes of joint pain?
Common causes and risk factors for joint pain include:
- Arthritis
- Gout
- Fractures
- Joint inflammation
- Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)
- Fibromyalgia
- Dislocation
- Lupus
- Thyroid disorders
- Sprains
- Tendonitis
- Sports injuries
Your risk of joint pain increases with older age, and joint wear and tear is associated with aging. You might injure your joints playing sports, being in a car accident, or after falling down.
How does my doctor diagnose the cause of joint pain?
To figure out what’s causing joint pain, COSMO providers review your symptoms and medical history. They examine painful joints to look for signs of injury and disease.
Your specialist often recommends you undergo blood tests, urine tests, and joint fluid tests, as well as X-rays, MRIs, ultrasounds, CT scans, or other painless imaging procedures.
What are common joint pain treatments?
Common joint pain treatments available at COSMO include:
Home remedies
Home remedies you can try for joint pain relief include heat packs, cold packs, weight loss, exercise, and shoe inserts.
Physical therapy
Physical therapy with the expert therapists at COSMO includes strength and aerobic exercises, as well as stretching, to accelerate healing and improve joint health.
Injections
Joint injections can lubricate your joints, relieve discomfort, and reduce inflammation associated with joint problems.
Joint preservation
Joint preservation services available at COSMO include platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, stem cell injections, and joint surgery to repair affected joints.
Joint replacement
If you have severely damaged joints and pain, your COSMO specialist may recommend surgery to replace part or all of a joint and restore its function.
Don’t live with debilitating joint pain when you don’t have to. Call the Colorado Sports Medicine and Orthopaedics office to book an appointment or schedule one online today.
