Common knee symptoms :

• Pain
  • location of pain: front (patella pain), back (patella pain), inside (medial meniscus tears, medial collateral injury, medial joint arthritis), outside (lateral meniscus tears, lateral collateral ligament injury, Ilio-tibial band tendonitis, and lateral joint arthritis)
  • Timing of pain (for instance : while going down stairs; morning pain and stiffness that resolves with gentle activity, pain while you stand up and walk after prolonged sitting).
• Popping and snapping within the knee is quite common, and often not a symptom of any particular problem. These sounds can be associated with pain.
• Locking is a symptom that occurs when a patient cannot bend or straighten their knee. The locking can either be due to something actually blocking motion of the knee (a piece of cartilage or meniscus wedges within the joint) or when pain prevents the patient from moving the knee. Treatment of pain and quadriceps exercises allow to differentiate these two causes. A MRI (magnetic resonnance imaging) or a CT-scan will find the cause of mecanical locking.
• Giving way and instability : it can be a symptom of a ligament injury (anterior cruciate ligament), or the symptom of the weakness of the quadriceps (muscle of the thigh) or both .
• Swelling : immediate swelling after an injury brings up a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament or a fracture of the top of the tibia. When swelling develops gradually, the injury is more likely a tear of meniscus or a knee sprain. Without the presence of a known injury, swelling can be due to arthritis.

Docteur Jean Etienne Perraudin,