4/24/2023 0 Comments Knock kneedThings like: regular exercise, a balanced diet, avoiding cigarettes and not drinking to excess (for more tips on maintaining bone health, check out this blog). The simple answer is that we need to do the obvious things to keep our knees strong and pain-free, whatever our alignment. For varus knees, this damage is likely to be on the medial (inner) side of the knee for valgus knees, on the lateral (outer). Over time this can cause cartilage wear, leading to osteoarthritis. If that weight is spread unevenly across the joint – as happens with bowlegs and knock knees – then one part of the knee sustains more impact. But they’re also absorbing weight from your upper body – and taking even more strain when you do something joint-strenuous, like walking down stairs. Think about what your knees are doing for a moment. With all that said, misalignment does have the potential to cause knee problems over time. (For completeness, we should add that malalignment can also be caused by certain congenital conditions, such as Blount’s disease (tibia vara), or by the Vitamin D-deficiency disorder rickets – but these are less common.) So when does it cause problems? But that doesn’t automatically mean they’ll have knee issues. (This is probably because heavy sporting activity during their growth years causes a partial growth arrest on the inner side of the shinbone). You may have noticed that many professional footballers, for instance, seem to have varus knees. The misalignment might even be quite prominent. So to the second question… Is misalignment a problem?Īnd the short answer is: no, not necessarily.Īlthough many of us have some degree of misalignment, few of us will go on to experience serious problems because of it. But often – as we’ve seen above – they won’t end up absolutely and perfectly straight in adulthood. In almost all cases, young children’s legs will straighten out as they grow older. Parents often notice varus or valgus knees in their toddlers, when misalignment can be more pronounced. Valgus – your knees turn inwards, pushing the joints closer together (‘ knock knees’) Varus – your knees turn slightly outwards, giving the legs an arched appearance (‘bow-leggedness’) In fact, if you examine most people’s knees closely enough, you’d likely find some misalignment (or malalignment, as it’s also termed). In practise, though? Few of us are built like that. Draw a line between the centre of your hip and the middle of your ankle – if the dead centre of your knee sits precisely on that line, congratulations, you have perfect alignment. Well, the textbook answer might go something like this. Starter for 10: what does a perfectly aligned knee look like?
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