"My crunchy knees"

What does it mean when your knees make a crunching noise? Can hear them mostly when i get up for my 3am p1ss but thats probably cuz its quiet. Sounds like someone’s emptied a packet of walkers down me axminster.. scary! Perhaps a good service and re grease ‘ll sort it, how hard can it be?.. Now how do you get this dust/knee cap off…..

it’s age 🙁

same thing that’s making you get up for a wee at 3am…

they probably do it all the time, there’s just elss background noise at 3am.

I have two knees (am I unique)

one is slightly crunchy, the other is very crunchy. I had the very crunchy one operated on a couple of years ago. it went smooth. It’s now crunchy again. It also ‘cracks’ a lot and is so loud that it actually wakes the wife up at night!
She says it needs looking at agian. i can’t say I want another op on it – it was sodding painful. I’ll just carry on with the dull ache, occasional semi collapses, etc for a while longer

ia arthritis old chap. The bones rough up and rub on each other.

Miserbale innit? I played football on Monday and now my right knee won’t let me walk down the stairs.

Take loads of Glucosamine and Bio-Selenium – loads! It’s like extra body-friendly joint lube or something (perhaps a sports scientist could back me up on this one)! My dad takes it and I’ve started too as I don’t fancy knee replacement surgery before age of thirty! Only three years to go then 🙁

I’m 29 and mine creak. So god* knows what i will be like in 20 years time 🙁

God

I once got a click in one knee after going over the bars heavily onto it. It took about 2 years to go away. Now I can’t remember which one it was…

Mine click so loudly the wife hears me coming to bed 😮

Does she then hide from you?

pops are often air pockets in the joint being disturbed, and are actually the noise of the vacuum seal being broken (same as pulling a sucker off a glass panel).

sofatester – Member
Does she then hide from you?

How do you know?

sofatester – Member
Does she then hide from you?

How do you know?

Pilow talk?

I never quite believed the idea of air pockets, surely the results would be excruciatingly painfull, like the bends?

The physio said that 95% of noise from knees/any joint is tendon rubbing on bone, mostly harmless unless its becomes inflamed/painfull, which means your doign too much excercise/not flexible enough.

So when you knee ‘pops’ its often the ITB or kneecap tendons settling back into their groove. The noise is because the load on the tendon/ligament is often several times your bodyweight turns it into a very thick, damped, stressed guitar sting.

I went to the docs a few years ago with the same thing, I must have been somewhere around 34 – 36, he gave them a prod and poke, agreed they were pretty noisy, asked if I’d played much football/rugby (which I hadn’t) and said his were far less noisey and he had!

That was about it, very helpful!!

I was concerned they were destroying themselves and might need ‘cleaning out’ he said as I wasn’t in pain he couldn’t see a surgeon wanting to operate.

I might not be in pain but it makes me want to vommit when I walk up the stairs!

I dont crunch, but I do creak REALLY loudly from my ankles. Like a badly oiled large hinge. Maybe I should drink more!

I had a visit from an old ailment a few nights ago.

I woke up with a pain in my left knee which was slowly getting more painful. However, trying to move or straighten my knee was even more painful! I had to sort of gently move it back and forth before eventually straightening it.

This used to happen to me quite a lot, but i always forgot to tell the physio about it. Anyone suffer the same?

I wish mine were healthy though, still have a hankering for a game of squash now and then…

It’s called crepitus. Mine crunch too and are very easy to hear if it’s quiet, particularly if going upstairs. Apparently if it doesn’t hurt it’s not considered a problem. probably caused by the underside of your knee cap being a bit rough due to misalignment.

As suggested above Glucosamine and cod liver oil. Both allegedly better than prescribed drugs, don’t know how true that is.

There are (IIRC) 3 sources of noise from joints.( all put very simply and its years since I learnt this stuff

The noise of the bone ends rubbing together due to arthritis / wear on the cartilages meaning you have a rough bearing surface – this is the creaking noise
Popping of bubbles of vacuum / dissolved gas in the joint – as the joint moves in certain ways the effective volume of the joint space changes lowering the pressure – this can lead to small bubbles of vacuum forming then collapsing. this is a sharp "pop" with no obvious alteration to joint movement
A "click" as ligaments / tendons slide over each other and momentarily catch and release

If there is no pain associated with it is is usually benign. Pain means trouble – go get checked out.

As for the glucosamine / chondrotinin – there is no scientific evidence IIRC for this doing any good. No benefit proven in double blind studies. However the anecdotal evidence is that it does do some good and there is no evidence of harm so ther would be little to lose by taking it.

My knees crack, get really hot and my left clicks due to torn cartiledge – im 26.

Go to the docs/physio if your worried.

TJ – I thought there had been some fairly conclusive large scale double blind studies done on Glucosamine, suggesting that it did indeed have mild anti inflammatory properties and some clinical response? Some of the other claims (encouraging healthy synovial fluid production etc) are obviously more difficult to prove

Regardless, it’s really popular and we get really good responses in animals to a prolonged course (>4-6 weeks).

I’d definately recommend it, possibly with Chondroitin Sulphate. You seem to need to take it daily for a while before seeing any improvements though.

My 90 year old uncle swears by cod liver oil. He can still run around and play football with his grandchildren.

FBK – I think that there is some evidence it works but it is far from conclusive. studies as usual are contradictory and often badly flawed in their methodology. My position would be open minded scepticism.

As for anecdotal. I have mild osteo arthritis. Taking it in recommended dosages for six months made zero difference to me. Cod liver oil increased pain noticeably. Perhaps I didn’t believe enough?

However as there is no great evidence of harm being caused ( far less harm than Ibuprofen for example) then I shall sit on the fence and say take it if you want.

I had a big knee problem last year and I’m afraid I have to recommend prescription drugs – Diclofenac – its an anti-inflammatory. My doctor was kind enough to prescribe nearly 200 and I’ve still got loads left – pop one as soon as it gets sore. Also no noise now!

years ago i suffered aching knees and joints pre biking. playing 5 a side and gym. I then took glucosamine, it took about 3 months to start working but it does work and ive never suffered since. i took up mountain biking last year and dont have any pains yet. start on about 1500 to 2000 mg a day and once effective drop to what ever suits you i take 750 a day