Home › Blog › How to help knee arthritis?

Can you “recover” from knee arthritis, or is it just a one way street? Many patients ask the question, “how to help knee arthritis“? Arthritis happens when knee cartilage begins to break down. So the first part of the recovery plan would have to reverse that trend, meaning build up more cartilage. Can this be done with diet or supplements? The answer is likely yes. Supplements for arthritis like glucosamine and chondroitin show strong MRI evidence of being able to rebuild cartilage. In addition, losing weight has been shown to help knee arthritis pain just as gaining weight can make it worse. Another way to stage a knee arthritis recovery may be to make sure that subtle bio mechanical problems aren’t wearing down the cartilage in the knee. Can strengthening help the knee arthritis? Do injections help? One study recently looked at a very specific way to get rid of knee cap pain with running and found that strengthening the gluteal (butt) muscles reduced knee pain. How about injections? We certainly know that the most common injection given in knees – steroids and anesthetic, is a toxic mix for cartilage. How about shots like SynVisc (also called rooster comb shots or hyaluronic acid)? These can help protect knee cartilage, but usually have short lived positive effects in patients with mild knee arthritis. Is there any way to use the patient’s stem cells to boost the repair abilities of the knee joint? We believe that’s exactly what happens when the patient’s own stem cells are used as a knee surgery alternative. For more info on the 10 steps to knee arthritis recovery, see our top 10 causes of cartilage loss blog.

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile