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Expert 3
Noisy Knees.
June 2020
M.L, Essex
Question
  • Is this an old or new injury? New 
  • How did it happen / history of the injury? 
  • No Has it happened before? Not sure how long its been there for possibly a couple of weeks 
  • Pain? No pain at all 
  • Symptoms such as pins and needles / numbness / giving way? No pain, numbness or anything else 
  • 24 hour pattern - if my daughter squats her right Knee clicks going down and coming up 
  • Anything you do that makes things worse / better? N/A 
  • Other medical conditions? None 
My daughter is 8 years old in a couple of weeks does a LOT of sprinting and jumping. Over the last couple of weeks we've noticed her non jumping slightly weaker knee clicks most of the time but does not hurt. 

Expert Answer

Thanks for your message. 

It appears as though what you are explaining is a normal and very common noise known as ‘crepitus’ however I can understand why such noises may be distressing or concerning. Crepitus can be a result of two different things:

Pathological: Development of noise within the joint as a result of injury to the knee such as a meniscal tear or degenerative condition, and there are normally associated symptoms along with these noises such as pain.
Physiological: This is common in approximately 99% and are much more common than pathological reason and people report development of symptoms without an associated caused.

No one really know why or what causes these noises, however the main theory is that there is a build up of bubbles within the synovial fluid (the fluid responsible for lubricating our joints) and as a movement is performed and pressure within the joint, these tiny bubbles escape, creating the popping or clicking sound.

The presence of joint crepitus is not always an indicator of damage occurring in the joint, and there is no evidence to associate joint clicking and the development of early osteoarthritis.

The fact that your daughter does not have any other symptoms, pain, swelling or sensation loss and cannot contribute the onset of these symptoms then I am confident that these is the common physiological type crepitus.

If your daughter is particularly active then continue to ensure that she performs other exercises away from her main activity such as lower limb strength and stretching exercises.

The video below may provide further insight into this phenomenon.

I hope this helps

Kind regards

Matt
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