When to Consider Hyaluronic Acid Injections for Knee Osteoarthritis

Climbing stairs, getting out of your favorite chair, going for a walk — these are all just a little bit harder these days thanks to knee osteoarthritis (OA). And if you lead an active lifestyle, this common problem can really put a dent in your ability to get out and play.

Osteoarthritis affects 33 million adults in the United States, and knees are most often in the line of fire. Around the world, about 365 million people are hobbled by knee OA, and the problem is growing as the population ages.

At Apex Pain Specialists, Dr. Maziar Massrour and Dr. Naveen Reddy have a great deal of experience in managing pain due to osteoarthritis, and we offer a range of effective treatment options that can help relieve knee pain. For knee OA, in particular, we want to highlight one of these treatments: viscosupplementation, or hyaluronic acid injections.

How knee OA breaks down your joint

May is Arthritis Awareness Month in the US so we want to take this opportunity to share a little bit about osteoarthritis (OA).

There are more than 100 different types of arthritis and OA is, far and away, the most common type. OA is considered a wear-and-tear disease and occurs when the protective cartilage that covers the bones in your joints breaks down. 

As this soft tissue breaks down, it creates loose bodies in the joint that can get lodged between bones. And as the disease progresses and the cartilage breaks down further, the bones in the joint can start to rub together, which is what leads to the pain and inflammation that mark OA.

So, when this occurs in your knees, there can be painful friction between the three bones that make up the joint: your femur (thigh bone), tibia (shinbone), and patella (kneecap).

Getting back to smooth gliding with viscosupplementation

Now that we understand what we’re up against with knee OA, it will make more sense how viscosupplementation works.

Very simply, we inject a substance into your affected knee that restores lubrication and prevents the bone-on-bone contact that’s leading to your joint pain. That substance is hyaluronic acid (HA), which is a naturally occurring substance in your body.

HA is a gooey material that you can find in your eyes, skin, and joints and it excels at retaining moisture; a quarter teaspoon of HA can hold up to 1.5 gallons of water. So, as a lubricant, HA certainly performs well.

With viscosupplementation, we inject HA into your knees to encourage smoother gliding between the bones. We perform these quick-and-easy injections right here in our office and you should start to feel pain relief in about a week.

As for how long those results last, your body does naturally reabsorb the HA, but that typically takes 6-12 months, giving you a good chunk of time in which your knee pain isn’t overshadowing everything. If and when the knee pain returns, we can discuss further HA injections to maintain the lubrication in your knees.

To explore whether viscosupplementation is right for your knee osteoarthritis, we invite you to call our office in Chandler, Arizona, at 480-820-7246 or book an appointment online today.