Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Lesions
Cartilage is a firm, rubbery material that covers the surface of your bones where they meet to form a joint.
When this tissue is healthy, it cushions your joint and allows it to move easily, with very little friction. However, when it’s damaged by an injury or osteoarthritis, you may experience pain, stiffness and a loss of function.
Understanding osteoarthritis and cartilage lesions
The most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease characterized by the gradual wearing down of your cartilage over time. Although it can affect any joint in the body, it’s most likely to impact the joints in your spine, hips, knees and hands.
A cartilage lesion is an injury that involves damage to the cartilage surrounding the knee joint. These lesions may be degenerative and caused by “wear and tear,” or they may be traumatic and caused by a sudden injury. When the lesions develop, they may not result in any symptoms initially. However, as the damage progresses, they can lead to a number of problems, including inflammation, decreased mobility, pain and a loss of joint function.
Because osteoarthritis and cartilage lesions both affect your joints, they produce very similar symptoms. The most common ones include:
- Joint instability
- Decreased range of motion
- A locking or catching sensation in the joint
These symptoms may improve with rest, but they will always return when you resume your normal activities. And, because osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease, the damage and symptoms will continue to worsen over time.
If our physiatrists suspect a cartilage problem is causing your symptoms, we will perform a full physical examination in order to obtain a diagnosis. We will begin by collecting detailed information about your symptoms, including their duration, severity and what activities seem to worsen them. From there, we will move the affected limb to test its mobility and evaluate the area for tenderness.
Frequently, we will order a state of the art 3T MRI to access cartilage and bone baseline status and to monitor following treatment and activity.
Healing Bone and Cartilage
Because cartilage doesn’t have the ability to regenerate or repair itself, it has been long believed that damage to this critical material is permanent. As such, the most patients could hope for is to slow the progression of their disease and temporarily relieve their symptoms, until they’re ready for joint replacement surgery.
Fortunately, there’s now a better way to treat osteoarthritis and cartilage lesions among our Los Angeles patients. Hyaluronic Acid, PRP and Bone Marrow Stem cell therapy are promising ways to control the cellular environment inside the joint responsible for degeneration, pain and inflammation. In this way, men and women who are suffering from cartilage-related injuries and diseases can do more than simply mask their symptoms – they can achieve genuine healing and return to their active, pain-free lifestyle.