What to do about joint soreness in Surprise

What to change during local activity

Court play at Community Park uses knees, ankles and shoulders in different ways. Golf at The Grand may bring out hip stiffness or knee soreness. Uneven ground near White Tank may bother a joint that feels fine on level streets. Shorten the activity while the soreness settles. Reduce the exact movement that makes the ache rise sharply.

Write down the activity, the painful movement and how long you lasted.

What to know before driving to care

Bell Road usually takes central Surprise residents east toward Loop 101. From there, the route uses Thunderbird Road and 94th Drive. North Surprise may take longer because the trip begins near Loop 303. Traffic isn't steady, and the starting street changes the drive. Think about the trip home before you leave.

Allow time to move the joint gently after sitting in the car.

What to take to the nearest clinic

Bring older x-rays, write down your medicines and describe the painful movement. Include how long you can walk, play or stand before the ache rises. Tell the clinician which home steps helped and which didn't. Ask about the likely number of return visits. Also find out whether the car ride could affect recovery.

At 13128 N. 94th Dr., Suite 205, Peoria, AZ 85381, QC Kinetix offers regenerative treatment options using blood or marrow fluid after an exam.

Sources

1. The 2019 ACR/Arthritis Foundation guideline makes STRONG recommendations for exercise, weight loss in people with overweight or obesity, self-efficacy and self-management programs, tai chi, cane use, tibiofemoral bracing, topical NSAIDs, oral NSAIDs and intra-articular glucocorticoid injection in knee OA. Notably it does NOT strongly recommend any biologic injectable.

   Kolasinski SL, et al. — 2019 American College of Rheumatology/Arthritis Foundation Guideline for the Management of Osteoarthritis of the Hand, Hip, and Knee.. Arthritis & rheumatology (Hoboken, N.J.), 2020. DOI: 10.1002/art.41142.

2. OARSI 2019 designates arthritis education plus structured land-based exercise (with or without dietary weight management) as CORE treatments for knee OA and strongly recommends topical NSAIDs (Level 1A), while strongly recommending AGAINST oral and transdermal opioids (Level 5). The treatments with the strongest evidence in this condition remain the least dramatic ones.

   Bannuru RR, et al. — OARSI guidelines for the non-surgical management of knee, hip, and polyarticular osteoarthritis.. Osteoarthritis and cartilage, 2019. DOI: 10.1016/j.joca.2019.06.011.

3. The Cochrane review of exercise for knee osteoarthritis found high-quality evidence that land-based therapeutic exercise provides short-term benefit in pain and physical function, sustained for at least 2-6 months after the programme ends, with mild transient soreness the only reported adverse effect across 45 trials. It is the best-evidenced treatment for this condition and it costs nothing per injection.

   Fransen M, et al. — Exercise for osteoarthritis of the knee.. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2015. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004376.pub3.

4. A randomized controlled study of 111 patients aged 18-65 with hip osteoarthritis compared three weekly ultrasound-guided injections of PRP, hyaluronic acid, or both. PRP had the lowest VAS at every follow-up and beat HA significantly at 6 months (mean VAS 21 vs 44). But the WOMAC advantage present at 2 and 6 months was NO LONGER significant at 12 months, and the combination arm did worse than PRP alone.

   Dallari D, et al. — Ultrasound-Guided Injection of Platelet-Rich Plasma and Hyaluronic Acid, Separately and in Combination, for Hip Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Controlled Study.. The American journal of sports medicine, 2016. DOI: 10.1177/0363546515620383.

5. The PRIMA trial randomized 100 patients with ankle osteoarthritis to two ultrasound-guided intra-articular PRP injections or saline placebo. AOFAS scores improved 10 points with PRP (63 to 73) and 11 points with placebo (64 to 75); the adjusted between-group difference over 26 weeks was -1 (95% CI -6 to 3, p=0.56). The authors state the results do not support using PRP for ankle osteoarthritis. The evidence for a biologic in one joint does not transfer to another.

   Paget LDA, et al. — Effect of Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections vs Placebo on Ankle Symptoms and Function in Patients With Ankle Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Clinical Trial.. JAMA, 2021. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2021.16602.