How to Diagnose the Cause of Joint Pain

When the creaking sound of your knees alerts everyone in the office to your presence and you’re consuming anti-inflammatory medications like they were candy, it’s time to figure out what’s causing your pain. If joint pain makes you alter your lifestyle, consider visiting your doctor to determine the underlying cause.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Walk normally and ask a friend or family member if they notice a limp. If you’re over 50, osteoarthritis is a common cause of hip pain. If you have sickle-cell disease, your hip pain may be the result of necrosis. Both can result in a limp.
2. Rotate your shoulder and arm. If you experience pain when raising your arm to groom your hair or lift objects, bursitis may be at fault. In addition, a pulled neck muscle can radiate pain into the shoulder area. However, if your shoulder pain accompanies chest pain, angina might be restricting the oxygen flow to the heart muscles.
3. Ask your physician about severe joint pain that persists after a trauma to the area. Knee injuries in children and athletes are common but due to the ligaments involved, it’s imperative that a doctor take a look at a knee injury that doesn’t show improvement within a couple of days.
4. Allow your doctor to schedule tests to determine the cause of knee pain that radiates to the calf, with or without tingling and numbness. An acute embolus or venous thrombosis can block blood flow in the legs, resulting in pain in the knee and an achy feeling with swelling or cramps.
5. Take your child to see the doctor if his or her joints become very swollen after a small or moderate bump to the joint. Hemophilia in children results in internal bleeding from relatively small injuries.
6. Notice if your knee pain is worse when going up and down stairs as opposed to when you are walking on a flat surface. A chondromalacia patella is a relatively common disorder of the knee where the cartilage softens in the kneecap causing pain when you climb or descend.
7. See a sports doctor if you or your child suffers an injury during play and you are unable to move the joint. Prompt medical attention can reduce long-term effects from fractures or torn ligaments.