There are many types of injuries your knee can face including the tearing of ligaments or the fracture of the knee cap. The former is a lot more common and the Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear being the most common knee injury.
The recovery from a knee injury is an arduous process. There is much you need to do before you completely heal your knee injury.
You cannot know completely what your knee injury entails so you should see a doctor immediately. That should be your first step towards recovery from the injury.
If you want to recover from a knee injury, you should do the following:
Rest the Knee
You don’t have to be told this but it is very important and unfortunately, people don’t do it enough. You should rest the knee as much as you can when recovering from a knee injury.
You may be restricted to the hospital for a few days after the injury where you will be required to rest. The hard part comes after you leave the hospital because at home is where the challenge is.
Stay off your feet as much as possible which is easier said than done especially for active people. Resting allows the body’s natural healing capacity to take over and go to work on repairing the damage.
Strengthen Your Knee
A major cause of knee injuries is having weak knees that cannot support your body weight or significant amounts of force. Therefore, to recover from a knee injury, you will have to strengthen your knee. You can do much to strengthen your knee while you recover. The key is to protect your knees not to hurt them. However, there are limitations to what you can do on your own while recovering from injury.
Physical therapy will be very helpful in helping you recover from a knee injury. It will not only help you strengthen your knees but it will help you restore the range of motion in your knee joint. Stretching your knee will be crucial to restoring the range of motion in your knee. However, you should strengthen the knee first before you start stretching it. Therefore, you should ensure that you seriously consider visiting a physiotherapist while recovering from a knee injury.
Ice the Knee
When you suffer from a knee injury, two of the most common symptoms will be pain and swelling. These will remain even after you have had surgery or any corrective action on the knee.
You should ice the knee as it will help reduce both the knee and the swelling. It makes your knee slightly numb which reduces the pain and the cold reduces blood flow to the area hence the swelling goes down.
You should ice the knee during recovery for about thirty minutes every three or four hours depending on how long you are awake. If you can, you should continue until the swelling and pain are almost gone.
Support Your Knee
It is almost impossible to completely stay off your feet. Even when you do, all that is necessary is a momentary lapse in concentration and you will put pressure on your knee. Therefore, to recover from a knee injury, you should ensure that you support your knee. It may include wearing knee sleeves which compress the knee without causing it pain
Supporting your knee might also mean using medical aids such as crutches or a wheelchair. As long as you are not using your knee and can rest it, you should do so using any available aid.
Maintain a Positive Attitude
An aspect of recovering from a knee injury that is often forgotten is the mental aspect. It takes a great deal of mental strength to recover from a serious injury.
The pain in particular combined with the isolation can cause you a significant amount of mental anguish. It is common for those recovering from a knee injury to suffer from depression. Therefore, you should ensure that you maintain a positive attitude all through the recovery process. It will significantly affect your experience during a tough time.
A sense of humor should help you maintain a positive attitude. Support from others is also a great idea to maintain your high spirits during this time.
Recovering from a knee injury is a serious endeavor that requires a great deal of patience and willpower. If you can do the above, you should have a great chance of fully recovering from the injury. However, you should look for anything else you can do to aid your recovery.