Knee pain in Loveland, CO gets effective treatment at Dawson Chiropractic, where Dr. Jerod Dawson helps patients dealing with knee pain from injuries, arthritis, overuse, or chronic conditions by addressing not just the knee itself but the entire chain of alignment issues that contribute to knee problems. The office at 670 E 29th St has that welcoming, homey atmosphere patients appreciate when struggling with knee pain that makes walking, climbing stairs, or even standing difficult.
Dr. Dawson’s faith-based approach means he treats every knee pain patient with genuine care and patience, understanding how frustrating it is when your knees hurt with every step. He takes time to understand your specific situation – whether you twisted your knee playing sports, developed pain gradually from arthritis, or can’t figure out why your knees started hurting without any clear injury.
Most patients say they learn something new at every visit about what’s causing their knee pain and what they can do to help themselves between appointments. Many people are surprised to discover their knee problems actually start with how their feet hit the ground or how their hips and pelvis are aligned. Treating knees in isolation often doesn’t provide lasting relief.
What Causes Most Knee Pain?
Most knee pain comes from mechanical problems like ligament sprains, meniscus tears, arthritis, tendonitis, alignment issues, muscle imbalances, or improper foot mechanics that create abnormal stress on knee joints. Your knee is a hinge joint caught between your hip above and your foot below, forced to absorb and adapt to problems in both areas.
The knee takes more stress than almost any other joint in your body. It handles forces several times your body weight with every step, and even more during running, jumping, or climbing stairs. When your foot pronates excessively, your knee rotates inward. When your hip is weak or your pelvis is tilted, your knee compensates by shifting position or bearing uneven weight.
Sometimes knee pain happens from a specific injury – twisting wrong while playing sports, getting hit, or falling. Other times it develops gradually from years of improper alignment, repetitive stress, excess weight, or age-related wear on cartilage and ligaments. Understanding what’s causing your specific knee pain determines the best treatment approach.
Can Chiropractic Care Help My Knee Pain?
Yes, chiropractic care helps knee pain by addressing alignment problems in your feet, ankles, hips, and pelvis that create abnormal stress on knee joints, adjusting the knee itself when needed, providing exercises that strengthen supporting muscles, and treating the underlying biomechanical issues rather than just chasing symptoms. Many knee problems improve dramatically when you fix the foundation and alignment issues causing abnormal joint stress.
Dr. Dawson examines your entire lower body when you come in for knee pain, not just the knee that hurts. He checks how your foot hits the ground, whether your hips are level, how your pelvis aligns, and whether one leg appears functionally shorter than the other. These factors directly affect how forces travel through your knee.
Treatment includes gentle adjustments to your knee joint when restrictions exist, but more importantly addresses the hip, pelvis, and foot problems contributing to knee stress. Many patients also benefit from custom foot orthotics that correct the foundation problems causing their knees to work improperly.
How Do Foot Problems Cause Knee Pain?
Foot problems cause knee pain because when your foot pronates excessively (rolls inward), your shin bone rotates inward, which forces your knee to twist and creates abnormal stress on ligaments and cartilage with every step you take. Flat feet, high arches, and other foot alignment issues change how forces move up through your leg, and your knee bears the brunt of that abnormal stress.
Your foot is your foundation. When it doesn’t function properly, everything above it compensates. Excessive pronation is particularly damaging to knees because it causes internal rotation that stresses the medial (inner) side of your knee and puts abnormal tension on ligaments and tendons.
Dr. Dawson uses a digital foot scanner to identify exactly how your feet function and whether foot problems contribute to your knee pain. Many patients find that custom orthotics that correct foot alignment provide significant knee pain relief they couldn’t achieve by treating the knee alone.
Why Do My Knees Hurt Going Up and Down Stairs?
Your knees hurt going up and down stairs because these activities create forces 3-4 times your body weight on knee joints, and the movement requires your kneecap to track properly in its groove while quadriceps muscles control your descent and lift your weight during ascent. Any weakness, misalignment, or cartilage damage becomes especially painful during stair climbing.
Going downstairs is often worse than going up because your quadriceps muscles work harder to control your descent and prevent you from just falling forward. If you have kneecap tracking problems, the patella (kneecap) gets pulled out of its proper groove and rubs against bone in painful ways during the bent-knee position required for stairs.
Arthritis under the kneecap shows up prominently during stair use. Meniscus tears can catch or pinch during the squatting motion of stair descent. Weak hip or quadriceps muscles make your knee less stable and more painful during the demands of stair climbing. Treatment addresses whichever factors are creating your specific stair pain.
What About Squatting – Why Does That Hurt My Knees?
Squatting hurts your knees because the deep bend required creates maximum compression on cartilage and maximum stress on ligaments, plus if you have kneecap tracking problems or meniscus damage, the squatting position makes those issues especially painful. The deeper you squat, the more force concentrates on your knee joints.
Proper squatting technique matters. If you let your knees cave inward or track past your toes excessively, you create abnormal stress. Weak hip muscles that don’t control knee position during the movement increase pain and injury risk. Dr. Dawson teaches proper squatting mechanics when appropriate for your condition.
Some knee problems mean you should avoid deep squats until you heal. Others improve with carefully progressed squatting exercises that strengthen supporting muscles. The approach depends on what’s wrong with your knee and where you are in the healing process.
What Is Runner’s Knee and How Do You Treat It?
Runner’s knee is pain around or behind your kneecap caused by the patella tracking improperly in its groove, creating irritation of the cartilage on the underside of the kneecap and the groove it slides through. Despite the name, you don’t have to be a runner to get runner’s knee – it develops from any repetitive knee bending with tracking problems.
The kneecap should glide smoothly up and down in a groove on your thigh bone as you bend and straighten your knee. Muscle imbalances, hip weakness, foot pronation, or structural issues can pull the kneecap off-center so it rubs and grinds instead of gliding smoothly. This creates pain, especially during activities like running, stairs, or prolonged sitting.
Treatment for runner’s knee includes adjustments to improve knee and hip alignment, exercises that strengthen hip and quadriceps muscles to improve kneecap tracking, custom orthotics if foot problems contribute, and activity modifications while you heal. Most cases improve significantly with conservative care when you address all the contributing factors.
Can Arthritis in My Knees Be Helped?
Yes, knee arthritis can be helped through chiropractic care that maintains joint mobility, reduces inflammation, strengthens supporting muscles, and addresses alignment issues that create uneven wear on arthritic joints, though treatment can’t reverse existing cartilage damage or eliminate arthritis completely. Many arthritis patients manage symptoms successfully and maintain active lifestyles with proper care.
Arthritis means the cartilage cushioning your knee joint has worn down, causing bone-on-bone contact in severe cases. This creates pain, stiffness, swelling, and reduced mobility. While you can’t grow new cartilage, you can reduce symptoms and slow progression through treatment that improves how your knee functions.
Gentle adjustments keep arthritic knees moving as well as possible. Exercises strengthen muscles that support and protect the joint. Correcting foot and hip alignment reduces uneven stress that accelerates wear. Weight management, anti-inflammatory nutrition, and activity modifications all contribute to better arthritis management. Many patients avoid or delay knee replacement through comprehensive conservative care.
What Should I Do About Knee Swelling?
You should address knee swelling by using ice for 15-20 minutes several times daily to reduce inflammation, elevating your leg when resting, avoiding activities that increase swelling, and scheduling an evaluation to determine what’s causing the swelling since different causes require different treatments. Persistent or severe swelling warrants examination to rule out serious injuries or conditions.
Some swelling after knee injuries is normal as your body sends fluid and inflammatory cells to the area. Minor swelling that goes down within a few days isn’t usually concerning. Significant swelling that appears quickly after injury, swelling that doesn’t improve with rest and ice, or swelling accompanied by severe pain or inability to bear weight needs prompt evaluation.
Dr. Dawson examines swollen knees to identify the cause – ligament sprain, meniscus tear, arthritis flare, bursitis, or other issues. Treatment depends on the diagnosis. Some swelling responds to adjustments and exercises, while other causes might need medical referral for imaging or other interventions.
How Do Hip Problems Cause Knee Pain?
Hip problems cause knee pain because weak hip muscles fail to control knee position during movement, hip misalignment changes leg length and creates uneven stress on knees, and compensatory movement patterns develop when you avoid using a painful hip by shifting stress to your knee. Your hip and knee work as a unit, so problems in one area affect the other.
Weak hip abductor muscles (on the side of your hip) allow your knee to collapse inward during walking, running, and stairs. This inward collapse stresses knee ligaments and changes how your kneecap tracks. Over time, this abnormal movement pattern creates knee pain even though the underlying problem is hip weakness.
Dr. Dawson examines your hips when treating knee pain because addressing hip problems often eliminates knee symptoms. Treatment includes hip adjustments, exercises that strengthen hip stabilizer muscles, and lifestyle guidance about movement patterns that protect both hips and knees.
Should I Keep Exercising With Knee Pain?
You should continue exercising with knee pain by choosing low-impact activities that don’t aggravate symptoms, modifying movements that hurt, and following guidelines about the difference between productive discomfort and pain that signals you’re causing damage. Complete rest often makes knee problems worse by allowing muscles to weaken and joints to stiffen.
Low-impact exercises like swimming, cycling, or walking on flat surfaces usually don’t bother knee injuries as much as running, jumping, or activities with lots of direction changes. You can modify exercises – maybe biking instead of running, or doing exercises that don’t require deep knee bending.
Dr. Dawson helps you identify safe exercises and appropriate modifications based on your specific knee problem. Some conditions need initial rest followed by gradual return to activity. Others improve with continued movement as long as you avoid particular aggravating activities. Staying active in appropriate ways supports healing and prevents secondary problems from inactivity.
Will I Need an MRI for My Knee Pain?
You might need an MRI for your knee pain if you have symptoms suggesting ligament tears, meniscus damage, or other soft tissue injuries that don’t show up on X-rays, or if your knee isn’t improving with conservative treatment and more detailed imaging would help determine the next steps. Many knee problems can be diagnosed and treated effectively based on physical examination alone without imaging.
X-rays show bones, arthritis, and alignment but don’t reveal soft tissue injuries. MRIs show ligaments, meniscus, cartilage, and other structures that X-rays miss. If Dr. Dawson suspects a significant structural injury during examination, he might recommend MRI before starting treatment to confirm the diagnosis.
For straightforward mechanical knee pain without red flags, treatment often begins based on clinical findings. If you improve with care, imaging wasn’t needed. If you’re not improving as expected after several weeks, MRI might be ordered to see what’s been missed. Dr. Dawson will explain his reasoning if he recommends imaging for your knee.
Can Being Overweight Cause My Knee Pain?
Yes, excess body weight causes and worsens knee pain because every extra pound you carry adds 3-4 pounds of force on your knees with each step, accelerates arthritis development, increases inflammation throughout your body, and makes existing knee problems more painful and slower to heal. Weight management is one of the most effective treatments for knee pain, though also one of the most challenging.
Your knees are weight-bearing joints that handle significant forces during normal activities. When you’re carrying extra weight, those forces multiply. Over time, this increased stress wears down cartilage faster, leading to arthritis. The excess weight also affects how you move – changing gait patterns and creating compensation that stresses knees further.
Dr. Dawson approaches weight management compassionately through nutrition guidance and realistic activity recommendations. Even losing 10-15 pounds significantly reduces knee stress and often decreases pain noticeably. He helps you find sustainable approaches to weight management that fit your life and physical limitations.
What Exercises Strengthen Knees?
Exercises that strengthen knees include quadriceps strengthening like straight leg raises and wall sits, hamstring exercises, hip strengthening (especially hip abductors), and balance exercises that improve knee stability and control. Dr. Dawson prescribes specific exercises based on which muscles are weak and what your knee needs.
Strong quadriceps muscles support your kneecap and control knee bending during activities. Hamstrings balance the quadriceps and protect knee ligaments. Hip muscles control knee position and prevent the inward collapse that stresses knee joints. All these muscle groups work together to protect your knees.
Proper exercise form prevents injury. Dr. Dawson demonstrates correct technique and watches you perform exercises to make sure you’re doing them safely. He also explains which sensations are normal muscle fatigue versus pain that means you should stop or modify the movement.
Should I Use a Knee Brace?
You should use a knee brace if you have ligament instability, need support during activities while healing from injury, or find that a brace helps you move with less pain and more confidence, though braces shouldn’t replace proper treatment and strengthening because long-term brace dependence can lead to muscle weakness. Braces serve specific purposes depending on your knee problem.
Compression sleeves provide mild support and can help with minor pain and swelling. Hinged braces offer more substantial support for ligament injuries or instability. Patellar straps help with kneecap tracking issues. The right brace depends on what’s wrong with your knee.
Dr. Dawson can recommend appropriate braces when they would help your specific situation. Some patients benefit from wearing a brace during aggravating activities while working on strengthening exercises that will eventually eliminate the need for support. Others need more prolonged bracing for significant injuries or instability.
How Long Does Knee Pain Take to Heal?
Knee pain healing time depends on the specific injury or condition, its severity, how long you’ve had it, and how well you follow treatment recommendations, but most mechanical knee problems show significant improvement within 4-8 weeks of chiropractic care combined with exercises and activity modifications, while conditions like arthritis require ongoing management rather than complete healing. Dr. Dawson provides realistic expectations based on your diagnosis.
Minor sprains or strains often improve within a few weeks with proper care. Meniscus tears vary – small tears may heal while larger tears sometimes require surgery. Arthritis is a chronic condition that needs ongoing management but symptoms can improve significantly. Tendonitis resolves with rest and rehabilitation over several weeks to months.
Your recovery speed depends on factors like age, overall health, whether you can avoid aggravating activities, how consistently you do exercises, and whether you address contributing factors like foot problems or hip weakness. Dr. Dawson monitors your progress and adjusts treatment to keep you improving.
Does Insurance Cover Knee Pain Treatment?
Most health insurance plans cover chiropractic care for knee pain as it’s recognized as an effective conservative treatment, though coverage varies by policy regarding copays, visit limits, and whether pre-authorization is required. Dawson Chiropractic works with most major insurance carriers and handles all verification and billing so you can focus on healing.
The team verifies your benefits before starting treatment and tells you exactly what your out-of-pocket costs will be. Some plans cover knee treatment completely, others require copays, and a few have limited coverage that might not be adequate for completing a full treatment program.
For patients without insurance or whose plans don’t cover chiropractic adequately, the office offers affordable cash rates and payment plans. Dr. Dawson believes cost shouldn’t prevent people from getting care that addresses the root cause of knee problems. Call (970) 663-2200 to discuss your insurance coverage and available payment options.
How Do I Schedule an Appointment for Knee Pain?
Schedule an appointment for knee pain by calling Dawson Chiropractic at (970) 663-2200 to book an evaluation where Dr. Dawson will examine your knee, check your feet and hips, and determine what’s causing your pain and whether chiropractic care can help. You can also visit dawsonchiro.com to learn more about the practice’s approach to treating knee problems.
Your first appointment includes a thorough consultation about your symptoms – when they started, what movements hurt, what you’ve tried, and how knee pain affects your daily activities. Dr. Dawson performs a comprehensive examination including specific tests for ligament injuries, meniscus tears, arthritis, and tracking problems, plus evaluation of your feet, hips, and overall alignment.
Bring any imaging reports or medical records related to your knee if you have them. This information helps Dr. Dawson create the most effective treatment plan. If you’re not sure whether chiropractic can help your specific knee problem, call anyway – Dr. Dawson will provide an honest assessment and guide you toward appropriate care. Check out reviews on Google Maps to see what other Loveland patients say about their knee pain treatment experience.
Knee pain affects everything – walking, working, playing with kids or grandkids, enjoying hobbies, even sleeping when pain keeps you awake. You don’t have to live with constant knee discomfort, and addressing the root cause often provides better results than just treating symptoms. Stop limping through life and start healing – call today.
