knee braces vs. patellar straps

[squeezebox]

I must admit to knowing close to nothing about patellar straps, or their elbow equivalent.
I guess knee braces are better when swelling is involved,
My current pain is even with the bottom of the knee cap, and from just inside the knee cap to the center inside of my knee, rather localized, no swelling, about a level 3 pain. Pretty much the same for my right elbow.
So please fill me in about patellar straps, and knee braces.
Thanks !!

[illabelle]

I don't know a whole lot either, but I need to learn more. Here's my experience so far:

At one time I bought a Cho-Pat Dual Action Knee Strap http://www.cho-pat.com/products/dualactionkneestrap.php, and then returned it because I found it to be uncomfortable. Seems like there was a Velcro strip that kept digging into my skin.
I currently have a generic Walgreens stretchy knee brace, but it's too small, and I haven't been using it.

[Traveler]

Do you know what the issue(s) are with your knees? Meniscus tear, arthritis (osteo/rheumatoid), muscle strain or pull that hasn't healed well, etc? A lot depends on the nature of what is causing the pain. At 61 however (I am there too) I don't think you can do this without something giving you some backtalk in your body. I find my right knee always comes up to about a 3-4 and kind of stays there all day, regardless what I do, if thats worth anything. I am used to that low pain level and would probably be concerned if it stopped on its own. But, to your question...

Having used all kinds of different knee devices over the years, I have found the following work well for my particular knee issues;

Tommy Copper compression sleeves for knees work very well for general pain/swelling issues. These are only available via their website from what I can gather (tommycopper.com), but I can say they work very well and allow me to move over terrain that used to cause me some problems much more easily.

I use the Muller brand patellar straps that hug the knee above and below the knee cap when I am doing very long, steep descents. If your knee pain is exclusively downhill (disappearing when going uphill for the most part), this strap brace works very well. There are several types, but this one works best for me. I remove it once the steep downhill section is done and do not put it on until the next one.

Last, I recently changed from a heavy boot (Asolo TPS 520 GV at approximately 4 lbs a pair) to a light hiking shoe (Merrill Moab a approximately 1.8 lbs a pair) that changed the weight by a huge degree every time I lifted the foot for a step. It also changed my gait a bit to accommodate less heel material in the lighter shoe. I noticed an immediate improvement in knee behavior with this change. The impact of a footwear change was surprising.

Lastly, I take supplements of fish oil that tend to help a lot but to what degree I don't know. Apparently the last study of Glucosamine came up empty and had no overall benefit so that ended that experiment.

Hope this helps!

[Trance]

I have worn both.

The knee strap is great for light injuries or jumping, IT band issues... it can help with too if they are not severe..... you have to wear it *before* the pain starts though.

Honestly... I have found that an open patellar knee sleeve.... even a cheapo one from walmart, with the plastic side stabilizing bands, has worked the best for me. Wore it on my hike from the NOC to Hot Springs this year and my pain was maybe a 2/10 total. I was doing 20-30 mile days too.

[Sugarfoot]

Squeezebox, I feel for you. I started having knee problems hiking in 1997, hiking Virginia. My knees were swollen the size of grapefruit when I went to a clinic in Bland. Since it was bilateral, the doctor felt it was unlikely to be trauma or injury. Using neoprene knee braces, heavy-duty naprosyn, and codeine for night, I was able to hike on. I started using the single Cho-Pat strap that rides below the patella, but 2002 found me back at the doctors, this time a rheumatologist. All inflammatory processes were eliminated leading to the default diagnosis of osteoarthritis. I tried glucosamine, proteolytic enzymes and everything short of a dead cat in a gunny sack by the light of the full moon. Incidents became more frequent and the strap stopped doing anything. Paying a lot of attention to balancing the leg muscles helped. An arthroscopic procedure to release the quad tendons gave me three good years. Last year, I had to give up an attempted thru-hike at NOC when the pain was just too bad. My orthopedic surgeon is trying to keep me going without knee replacements, hoping that the biologic treatments will be proven in a few years. So now I have two off-loading custom knee braces that slightly lengthen as I straighten them, eliminating the bone-on-bone pain and eliminating any twisting of the upper and lower legs. They are uncomfortable to be sure, but not hiking would be worse. Welcome to the joys of aging.

[booney_1]

It is important to understand why your knees are sore. Runners knee is a common cause for sore knees. It's basically caused by weak quad and other knee "stabilizer" muscles. Leg lifts are a very easy, quick, extremely effective exercise to strengthen your knee. (actually strengthens muscles that stabilize the knee joint) I'd recommenced working up to 100 per side. Make sure you do it with toes pointed in, out and straight. Just google this for more details..

[lunatic]

Agree with those who say you should definitely understand why your knees are sore. Self diagnosis isn't always the best solution. Having said that, I will second the vote for Tommy Copper sleeves. Before my thru hike in '09 I had already had 4 knee surgeries and torn every ligament in both knees at least once - all soccer related injuries. I hiked wearing one high $$ sleeve/brace from don-joy and one cheapo from Rite Aid, and I never really had any bad problems - just general soreness. Since then I discovered the Tommy Copper sleeves and I really like them. Used them on both my JMT and my LT thru hikes in recent years and never had any problems.

[Praha4]

my suggestion is the Cho-Pat dual action knee strap http://www.cho-pat.com/products/dualactionkneestrap.php

[Riocielo]

I have been dealing with elbow pain for two years. ..I have recurrrent tennis elbow. Anti-inflamatories really didn't help. The elbow strap helped at first.

The two things that helped mist were steroid shots into the elbow --a big ouch , but 12 hours later it was like a miracle cure.

The other thing that helped was figuring or what caused the inflammation and stopping that activity. I had been pulling a rather heavy laptop out of its bag one handed, which caused the problem.

My ortho tild me eventually it would heal, but it would take a lung time. He was right. I have few problems with it now, so I guess it's almost healed.

Let someone look at both your bad parts and give you a recommendation for treatment.

[Odd Man Out]

My knee when gimpy on my hike this summer. The problem is hard to describe. There was some pain, mostly below and to the outside of the knee. But also it was just very weak. Going uphill, I could only take steps with my good leg. I couldn't step up with my bad knee. Going down was the opposite. I had to step down with my bad knee. If I stepped down with my good leg, I would have to support my body with my bad knee while stepping, which was a problem. The funny thing was that landing on my bad knee while walking down was not at all a problem. I could step off a rock a couple of feet high and land on my bad leg with no pain at all. I could even stand on one leg. As long as I could keep my leg mostly extended, the knee was fine. It was bending it with weight on it that was the real problem. Even walking on level ground was hard because I couldn't lift my bad leg up high enough to take a step. I started to walk side to side, sort of waddling down the trail. The other odd thing was that by morning the knee was fine, and just a day after the hike was over, it all pain was gone. Not sure what would be the best thing to try to prevent this problem for the next hike.

[ams212001]

I highly recommend spending the money for a physical therapist. I had runners knee, which kind of sounds like what you are describing.

The PT did a acupuncture type procedure to relax the muscles and than he gave me very simple exercises that helped tremendously. You may not even need a brace.

[Pedaling Fool]

I must admit to knowing close to nothing about patellar straps, or their elbow equivalent.
I guess knee braces are better when swelling is involved,
My current pain is even with the bottom of the knee cap, and from just inside the knee cap to the center inside of my knee, rather localized, no swelling, about a level 3 pain. Pretty much the same for my right elbow.
So please fill me in about patellar straps, and knee braces.
Thanks !!
That sounds similar to when my patellar tendon flares up, except there is swelling and it's localized to around the bottom to the knee cap, but not inside. It's a lot like runner's knee, but it's a result of a childhood accident, so a little different.

I workout with weights to keep it in check and limit my serious mashing of the pedals, because that more than anything causes it to flare up; however, with weightlifting I've found ways to make it stronger in such a way that I really have to do a hell of a lot before it flares up. And I never use straps/braces, nor drugs, because when it flares up, I take that as a message from my body to back off. I actually run more when it flares up and limit my cycling, because it's difficult for my to ride a bike in a "sensible manner"; if I were a pro, I'd be a sprinter, that's my style.

My idea is to lift weights and run to keep the knees healthy, but not too much of either one, so that I won't have to rely on doctors, braces or drugs to fix what I broke.


Here's a good article on running http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-r-stone-md/how-to-run-forever_b_5839232.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592


"Doc, does running hurt my knee?"

The answer is no. Injury hurts your knee.

If you have healthy knees, you can run forever. If you have a cartilage injury, a torn meniscus, or an unstable knee join,t then the knee will wear out faster than normal.

If you're a runner, or if you're considering taking up running, the following data and insights will help you protect your knees.

Running produces peak impact forces on the knee of 1-3 times your body weight [1] depending on a host of factors such as the smoothness of your gait, your running technique, and the surfaces that you run on. Heel striking increases the peak forces, mid-foot landing produces lower peak forces, as long as the running shoe is soft enough to permit compression of the arch tissues of the foot. Interestingly, when running is compared to walking, since you take fewer steps per mile when you run, the total amount of force that the knee sees is often less in smooth running than in walking. So technique and surfaces really do matter.

The normal knee has articular cartilage that varies from 1.69 to 2.55 mm thick [2]. The articular cartilage covers the ends of the bones in all joints and provides the smooth bearing surface.

The slickness is roughly 5-10x times slicker than ice sliding on ice [3,4,5]. When you injure the articular cartilage or get arthritis, this smooth surface begins to get rougher. As the surface roughens, there is a dramatic increase in the friction between the surfaces in the joint. This increased friction leads to gradually increasing wear of the joint surfaces [6]. During activities, such as running, the damaged surfaces can't absorb and distribute the impact force from your foot hitting the ground as well as normal joint surfaces can. So higher peak forces on an injured knee produce damage.

The normal knee also has two meniscus cartilages, which distribute forces and stabilize the knee. If torn or missing due to injury or surgery, the impact forces are concentrated on a smaller area of the knee leading to more rapid wear [7].

Lastly, the normal knee has ligaments that stabilize the knee. Unstable knees lead to tearing of the meniscus and just like a car out of alignment wears out its tires, the abnormal motions of the unstable knee lead to an acceleration of the wear patterns of the joint surfaces [8,9].

The assertion that normal knees can run forever is backed up by observations of huge animals, such as African elephants weighing over 13,000 pounds, who can run extraordinarily fast and live for 60 years without joint arthritis [10].

In addition, we have found that people are able to return to running even after injury by repairing their articular cartilage, and replacing damaged meniscus cartilage or ligaments with donor tissue. A long-term outcome study of some of our biologic joint replacement patients found that many were able to run again, after fearing that they had reached the end of the road.[11]

Nothing beats running. Running provides the endorphins, pheromones, adrenaline and testosterone so efficiently that the addiction to running and the bliss from it is very difficult to replace.

Running provides a health benefit on a cost basis and time analysis that any health care program would envy.

If you have healthy knees, run, but make sure you run efficiently with a smooth technique involving short strides, mid-foot landing, well-fitting running shoes and soft surfaces. If you have injured knees, repair them, or find the running bliss in other sports, but don't miss out.

[1234]

Ya really need an MRI to see what is going on inside your knee. In my case the trocar groove in my left knee is without cartridge, it just wore out. So soon as they get approval for just the replacement of the grove I will back in business. All the knee braces, made my condition worse I need to get my knee cap up off the groove. Keeping the front muscles and back muscles balanced seems to help the best. A to tight Ib band pulled my knee cap out of the groove and caused it to peel off the cartridge. I hope you find the issue and get it corrected.

[jimmyjam]

I actually carry both the strap and the sleeve type with knee cap hole and use the strap if I feel my IT band starting to act up and the other one for any other knee pain. But I haven't had to use them in about 9 months as I have been doing special exercises to strengthen my knees. Best to start slow and maybe take a naproxin or ibuprofen in the am for a few days.