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Hello Denny,

It sounds as though you may be starting to feel the symptoms of osteoarthritis in your knees. The good news is that there is a lot that you can do to help yourself. First, trying to keep to a healthy weight can really help - losing just a few kilograms can reduce knee pain by as much as a third. Next, keeping active, and especially working on making your knee muscles strong can also reduce pain, sometimes by up to a third as well. If you are having trouble getting up from a chair, your thigh muscles may have become weak, so it is really important that you start to do some exercises to strengthen them. Advice from a physiotherapist may be useful as may other advice on self-help measures from Arthritis Action (arthritisaction.org.uk). Joining an exercise programme such as that provided by Escape pain (escape-pain.org) may also be helpful.

Good luck

Wendy

Dr Wendy Holden
Consultant Rheumatologist and Medical Advisor to Arthritis Action

www.arthritisaction.org.uk /
info@arthritisaction.org