If you’ve been experiencing joint pain that just doesn’t seem to go away, you may be suffering from persistent joint pain. At some point or another, you may have overused a joint or tweaked it in a way that didn’t feel good — this happens to almost all adults. In those cases, rest, ice, and time are typically enough to get you back to normal.
However, when joint pain, stiffness, or achiness goes on for several days, weeks, or longer and is accompanied by swelling or it starts interfering with your normal activities of daily living, it’s not something that should be ignored. You likely need some type of pain management and will require more care than you can give yourself. At that point, you should seek orthopedic care for a joint pain diagnosis because it’s a sign that there’s something more going on.
Understanding Signs of Persistent Joint Pain
When thinking about joint pain, persistent or chronic joint pain is something that you can’t solve at home with rest, ice, and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications. It just doesn’t go away, no matter what you do, and the stiffness, swelling, and level of pain may fluctuate depending on the time of day, but it never goes away. For example, you may feel more stiffness in your joints in the morning, and it may loosen up as the day goes on — but the pain doesn’t abate.
In addition to stiffness, pain, and swelling, you may feel tenderness around the joint, and it might even appear red and warm to the touch. Another sign that something more is going on is that you could be experiencing weakness or feel odd sensations, like grinding, clicking, or popping when you extend or retract your joint. Chronic joint pain can have a markedly negative impact on your life, so it’s important to get evaluated if you are experiencing these symptoms.
While certainly an injury to the joint can cause chronic joint pain that would lead to an obvious joint pain diagnosis, there doesn’t have to be a specific reason or injury that can cause joint damage. Sometimes our joints deteriorate as we age, especially if there are complicating factors such as obesity or if you have a family history of arthritis. There are also degenerative conditions and musculoskeletal disorders that can cause persistent joint pain.
The Initial Orthopedic Evaluation
If you are seeking a joint pain diagnosis because at-home pain management isn’t doing the job, you’ll want to schedule an appointment with an orthopedic specialist. When you attend your appointment, you will want to be prepared to answer questions about your medical history and symptoms.
Your orthopedic specialist will review your lifestyle and activity, whether you play sports or exercise, if you’ve had previous injuries, and even what your day-to-day looks like. This helps the provider gain a solid understanding of how your joint works each day and what could be going on with it.
Additionally, once in orthopedic care, your provider will conduct a comprehensive physical examination to assess your joint’s strength and range of motion — meaning whether it can fully extend as it should — and at what point you experience pain, the stability of the joint in question, and your mobility. They will look at the skin surrounding the joint to see if it is red and tender, and evaluate any potential swelling. Finally, they will like you have you undergo specific orthopedic diagnostic testing.
Diagnostic Tests Orthopedic Specialists May Use
In order to obtain a joint pain diagnosis, your orthopedic care provider will send you for a variety of diagnostic tests to help them determine what is happening with your joint. These tests will help the doctor see what’s going on inside the joint, underneath the skin, and even what’s happening with the bones and soft tissue.
Your doctor will send you for X-rays to see what’s going on with the bones and your joint’s alignment, as well as CT scans if additional bone imaging is needed. In order to see the soft tissue, like your tendons, ligaments, and cartilage, you will be sent for an MRI and/or ultrasound.
It might seem surprising, but you will likely even be sent for blood tests and/or joint fluid analysis to rule out other causes, such as infection or an inflammatory disease. For example, gout causes uric crystals to form inside your joint, which over time can damage the joint. It is a condition that can come and go. Lyme disease and lupus can also cause joint swelling and aren’t the result of a joint injury or arthritis.
The physical examination plus the diagnostic tests will help your orthopedic care team establish a joint pain diagnosis and make recommendations for pain management.
Developing a Personalized Diagnosis and Treatment Plan
Once your orthopedic doctor determines what is causing your persistent joint pain, they can then create a personalized treatment plan that should help you with pain management and get you back to moving normally. This typically involves pinpointing what caused the pain in addition to finding the right joint pain diagnosis. What caused your joint pain could be a variety of factors, some of which can be improved with lifestyle changes.
Lifestyle modifications are something that many people are reluctant to want to hear, but often, they yield incredible results. Watching what you eat to maintain a healthy weight will reduce stress on joints, and participating in low-impact activity can help keep joints moving. Regular stretching, movement, and even breaks from repetitive movements can help. Your doctor will make recommendations that are personalized to you, your condition, and situation.
While there may be some limitations when it comes to non-surgical joint pain treatments, your doctor will give you the most effective treatment options with the most minimally invasive procedure. This could include physical therapy for a determined period of time, usually over several weeks. Physical therapy is designed to help strengthen the muscles around the joint, so it will be better supported and more stable. It can also help improve flexibility and overall mobility.
Finally, there are options for injections that can provide adequate pain management while your joint heals or while you await surgery. Surgery can repair torn ligaments, and in some cases, total joint replacement may be the last option available to eliminate joint pain.
Stop Suffering: Book Your Orthopedic Consultation for Chronic Joint Pain
If you’ve been suffering from pain that doesn’t seem to go away, it’s time to get a joint pain diagnosis and find the road to recovery. At minimum, you need proper pain management, as no one should live life suffering — and it’s important to be proactive so you don’t damage your joint further. Contact the Jacksonville Orthopaedic Institute today to get answers and relieve your pain!