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Your Knee and Your Pain

Your knees are the two largest joints in your body. When your knees are healthy, simple activities like walking, turning, and bending are easy and effortless. When they’re not, those simple movements become extremely painful. A complex network of bones, cartilage, ligaments, muscles, and tendons work together to keep your knees flexible and pain free. If there is a problem with any of these components, pain is typically the very first symptom.

What your knee looks like

Your knee joint is made up of three bones: a thighbone (femur), a shinbone (tibia), and a kneecap (patella). When you bend your knee, the rounded end of your thighbone rolls and glides across the relatively flat upper surface of your shinbone. Your kneecap is attached to the muscles that allow you to straighten your knee.

Ligaments are soft tissues that lie along the sides and back of the knee, holding the bones of the knee joint in place. These ligaments work with the muscles that control the bones, and the tendons that connect the muscles to the bones, so you can bend and straighten your knee. Fluid surrounds the knee, cushioning the area where skin or tendons glide across bone. The knee also has a fluid lining that lubricates the joint, further reducing friction and making movement easier.

Cartilage is a connective tissue found between bones that also acts as a cushion and helps to reduce friction. It is softer than bone, but harder than ligaments. Healthy cartilage allows the joint to move smoothly and easily without pain. The crescent-shaped cartilage in your knee is known as meniscus.

What’s causing your pain?

Arthritis is your knee’s biggest enemy. It can be caused by injury, disease, or the passage of time. There are more than 100 diseases in the arthritis category that cause pain, stiffness, and swelling from the inflammation of a joint or the area around joints. It affects nearly 40 million Americans. Could you be one of them?

Learn more about your knee pain .

Women’s knees are different than men’s knees

Your knees are shaped differently than men’s knees. Doctors are just beginning to understand how three unique characteristics of the female anatomy affect treating knee pain.

Learn more about what makes your knees so special.

Have you thought about how much knee pain affects your life?

A self-assessment quiz can help you and your doctor gain a better understanding of how the pain in your knee or knees shapes your everyday activity.

Learn more about the impact of knee pain.

Diagnosing the root of your knee pain?

X-rays and MRIs are two of the main tests your doctor may use to diagnose the source of your knee pain. Though similar in many ways, these two procedures give healthcare professionals different ways of looking at joint health.

Learn more about evaluating the root of your pain.

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