I've had such great success with my baker's cyst! It's really given me noticeable improvements. I'm very happy with the products, so now I've ordered the Back BFST.
Connie from New JerseyColdCure Leg | BFST Knee | Pre-Cut TapeJuly 15, 2022
Ligaments and tendons are strong ropes in your body that connect to your bones. A Ligament is a rope-like tissue that holds the ends of two bones together. Your ligaments hold your joints together so the bones don't slip out of place when you move.
A Tendon is a rope like tissue that attaches to just one bone. The other end of the tendon fans out, or splays, into your muscles. When you want to move, your muscles contract to pull the tendons, and that causes the bones to move. The Tendons are what your muscles use to pull on your bones to cause your knees to bend and your legs to move.
Ligaments and Tendons are actually more like steel cables than ropes. They are incredibly strong. They do not stretch - they are not supposed to stretch. When we talk about 'stretching' as it applies to knee health, we're actually talking about stretching the muscles, not the tendons and ligaments.
Tendons and ligaments are pretty much made of the same kind of tissue. Often it is referred to as 'connective tissue' or 'collagen'. Collagen is the major component of connective tissue, but generally the terms are interchangeable in most discussions.
The images shown only point out a few of the ligaments and tendons in your knee. The human body is pretty complex. You have many types of connective tissue or collagen in different parts of your body. The differences are meaningless as it applies to your condition though. It matters to microbiologists who study the body but in terms of your health and healing, it doesn't matter at all. You can just think of collagen as the body's key building material to make soft tissue strong, tough, and resilient.
This brings up a good point about marketing of 'collagen' as a health product. Your body produces collagen all over. It's not just for building your tendons and ligaments, but it is used as a structural tissue all through your body. For example, collagen is what gives your skin strength too.
Sometime a while ago, companies wanting to make money started selling 'collagen supplements'. The marketing generally goes, that your body needs collagen to be strong, so therefore if you eat this collagen you will be healthy. They confuse the point though - your body doesn't need to eat collagen, it needs to produce it. The collagen marketing pitch is kind of like saying that eating teeth are good for your teeth, or eating bones are good for your bones. Eating skin doesn't make you grow new skin.
Skin, bones, teeth and collagen are all important to have, but we don't eat them to produce them. Eating cartilage or collagen does not move it to the part of your body that needs it. Your body breaks everything you eat into vitamins and minerals and proteins and other good stuff and the same thing happens if you eat collagen supplements.
When your body needs to produce it's own collagen to fix your knee, then it needs to grow it from scratch. This is the same way your body needs to regrow broken bones and new skin when they are damaged. Eating collagen supplements probably isn't bad for you, as they contain a lot of amino acids which your body digests and can use. It's misleading, though, that marketers claim your body gets a message to build new collagen from the collagen you eat.
Your body grows new collagen in response to injury. Your body produces collagen when it recognizes the needs to heal some tissue. If you are generally well fed, your body has everything it needs, nutritionally, to produce all the collagen you need and to heal. Supplements are not bad. They are just not the core solution to your knee problem.
As mentioned, ligaments and tendons don't stretch. If they get pulled really hard, they can tear, and that is what is at the root of your injury. Fortunately, the healing properties of your body are truly amazing. When you tear a ligament or tendon, your body doesn't just fill the tears with new tissue. If it did that, then your ligament or tendon would be longer than it was originally. Then, because your knee ligaments got longer, your knee joint would easily dislocate and come apart. If your tendons got longer your muscles would have slack in the longer rope and you wouldn't be stable when you stand or walk.
When you have a torn ligament or tendon, your body knows it has to pull the tissue back together first, and then mend the torn tissue back together. This process takes time. For a full explanation of the healing cycle, see our all about healing page. Suffice it to say that your body builds repair tissue around the injury, pulls it together, then repairs it. That happens over several months or maybe even years depending on the extent of the injury.
The challenge to recovering from a torn knee ligament or tendon is that while your body is trying to pull the injury back together, your daily activity is often pulling it apart! Knee injuries are always a case of steps forward while healing, and steps backward as we reinjure ourselves. Your challenge is to make the steps forward as big as possible, while making the steps backward as few and small as possible.
A lot of people with a knee ligament injury think they know what caused it. Bad luck is the true answer. At some point you might recall a significant moment, moving a certain way, or doing a sudden motion, that caused a sudden shot of extreme pain in your knee joint. That was likely the cause. It may have been something you had done many times before, but for some reason, that one time, something went wrong. It's not your fault. It happens to so many people. As bad as it is, in these cases, the good news is that once you heal your injury completely, you are unlikely to be plagued by the issue again.
Sometimes though, we might not remember any particular event that caused the ligament or tendon to tear. It is possible that it was a one time event, but minor enough that you didn't notice at the time. Since then though, your constant level of activity has caused the injury to get worse. It's hard to tear a ligament or tendon in the first place, but once it happens, it's vulnerable to tearing more with a significantly less strain. Once torn, you don't just have the original injury to protect, but you also need to protect the repair tissue that's growing around the injury.
In these cases with no obvious origin, people usually notice the pain intermittently at first, perhaps during an activity they do regularly. In other cases, they never notice until they start to notice swelling or stiffness in the knee. Regardless, it's quite possible that the activity you are now doing when you notice pain was not what caused the tear in the first place. The first instance was probably just the bad luck, a one time event. But now that it's injured, the damage is likely getting worse during the regular activity where you now feel the pain. So, this means you need to go easy on that activity for a while and others like it.
Another way you may have damaged your knee is through something called Isometric Strain. This is different than injuries that we discussed above that happen when you did something harsh. Isometric Strain is a method of hurting your knee when you aren't moving at all. This kind of injury happens when you keep your knee locked in a certain position for a long period of time. It may be locked straight, or bent, or maybe with a twist. But if you keep your knee pressed into any one position for an extended period of time, that tissue being squeezed can get damaged.
Your knee has a lot of protection built into it as well. Often a tendon or ligament has a protective pad along side it, called a bursa, to protect your tendon from rubbing against a nearby bone or other ligament. The bursa is both a cushion and a slippery surface that protects your body's rope when it is pulling on the bone.
By design, your knee is expecting off and on pressure, like when you are walking or running or doing any repetitive motion. If you keep it under a lot of pressure for a very long time, though, the bursa can get squeezed flat and the tendon's protection from the bone is compromised. After a while, the ligament or tendon gets squeezed too. That rope like tissue gets squished, and with no lubricant or fluid buffer it's prone to damage. Then, if you move suddenly, maybe not even with a lot of effort, a tear is much more likely.
You hear it all the time when people talk about knee injuries. "I was getting out of the car and...", or "I was sitting there and when I went to get up...", or "I went to get out of bed and my knee just buckled..." The common thread is they were still for a long time and then went to move. Quite possibly, when they were still, their knee was experiencing gentle but long isometric strain that set them up for injury with that first step.
Isometric Strain happens more often than you realize. It's what happens to people who stand in one place for a long time with one or both knees 'locked'. Or think about crossing your legs for a long time when sitting - that torque on your knee is severe. Some people cross their ankles when they sleep. Doing so causes the knee of the top leg to hyper-extend for hours possibly, constantly squeezing the top and bottom of the knee cap. There are things that we do, that maybe you haven't thought about that cause isometric strain in different parts of your body. If you are unsure what caused your injury, think about this possibility as well. If this is the culprit then you may need to correct that habit, or you risk causing the injury over and over again. You will need to stop it for some time to at least let your knee heal.
Another common cause is Osteoarthritis. People often don't realize there are two kinds of Arthritis: Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is the bad one because it's a disease-like condition and it is a problem that doesn't go away. But most arthritis is actually osteoarthritis which is a problem coming from overuse - overactivity in a joint. Osteoarthritis can go away if you let up on the activity and let the joint heal. Often, active people develop osteoarthritis in their joints that they don't even realize is there. And the body's response to osteoarthritis is, again, to start producing synovial fluid to help the joint heal. When it is mild enough that you don't notice it, but it persists for a long time, then that can cause knee bursitis to develop.
We want to be clear here: Overactivity that causes osteoarthritis is when you do something excessively strenuous over and over. If the activity is light, you can do it endlessly and never have to worry about developing arthritis. If the activity is light, everything works as it should, and the joint moves freely, without damage. Walking, running, lifting medium to light weights repeatedly, constant bending of the knee - these are all considered light activity. Even a whole lot of light repetitive activity is not a concern for a healthy knee. Your knee is designed to do that type of activity repeatedly.
If the activity is heavy though, if you are putting a lot of pressure on the joint during the motion, tissue can rub that shouldn't. Bones can push together or ligaments and tendons can get squeezed to the point where the protection like bursae get diminished. The tissue that shouldn't touch each other start to rub. If it happens occasionally, that's not a problem. The bursae and cartilage are there for that purpose, to be a bumpers and wear pads during times of heavy strain. But there's a limit when it comes to heavy activity.
If you do a heavy load activity over and over and over again so that the parts of your knee constantly bumping and grinding on each other, then it is possible they get worn down over time faster than they can regenerate. When that is the case, a doctor will tell you the joint has developed osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis can go away if you let up on the activity and let the joint heal. Often, active people develop osteoarthritis in their joints that they don't even realize is there. And the body's response to osteoarthritis is, again, to start producing synovial fluid to help the joint heal. When it is mild enough that you don't notice it, but if it persists for a long time, then that can cause other knee injuries to develop.
Again, it's worth noting that if you are doing mild repetitive activity, you are not likely to sustain any injury no matter how much you do it. If the ligaments and tendons are not being pushed hard enough to bump and rub a lot, then your joint can do that activity forever. If the tendons and ligaments are not being squeezed excessively during repetitive motion then you will be fine. So don't get confused by the terms 'overuse injury' and 'repetitive strain injury'. That sort of injury only occurs if the excessive activity is also excessively strenuous on the joint.
Never wear compression bandages or straps or tight elastic products around your joints during times of repeated activity. That is a recipe for strain on your knee that results in tissue damage and eventually arthritis and/or bursitis. Yes, companies make them and sell them to make money, but they are only likely to injure the person wearing them. Bands and straps may look cool, but they are definitely compromising your knee health if you wear them during activity.
A torn tendon or ligament is going to last until your body successfully heals the underlying injury. By the time you started researching it, you have probably had the injury for a long time already. There's no doubt about it, something in your lifestyle is causing your injury to persist - your body can't heal the problem as fast as its getting reinjured. So, it is unlikely that it will just go away, unless you change something about your activity.
In many, many cases, you did something once that caused you to have an injury in the moment, and it didn't have a chance to heal, and the injury has persisted ever since. That's the best scenario, because if that's the case, if you can allow your body to heal and get past that injury, you are likely to be able to return to the same activity level as before and never have the problem again. Some people get to this point and may not realize what is the root cause. No matter what the cause, though, you have an injury and you need to let it heal. If you heal your injury, regardless of the reason it started in the first place, your pain and inflammation will go away and you will likely be able to resume normal life. That is, if this whole ordeal is dealt with properly...
Regardles of how your knee injury started, you need to go easy on your knee to let it heal. Once it's injured you may feel pain during lots of activities that would not have otherwise bothered you when you were healthy. If you feel pain doing any activity, that is a sign that your actions are tearing your injury further and you need to stop right away. Don't drive through the pain of any knee injury. Never drive through the pain. If you don't respect the pain your injury will possibly remain forever.
The internet is full of bad advice about treating your knee. Here's a short list though: Tight bands or tight elastic wraps are likely to make the situation worse. Topical creams for pain don't help healing one bit and can cause you even more injury. Pain killers probably make it worse. Driving through the pain will just make it worse.
For a little while - not forever - it is really helpful to give your knee a rest. In many cases, resting your knee for a few weeks will give it time to heal to a point that your body gets ahead of the healing / reinjury cycle. It's important to realize that once the pain goes away, your underlying injury is definitely not healed completely, so take it easy and go back to regular life gradually once the pain and swelling are gone. If you want to be more proactive about healing the problem, you can click here to visit the Recommended Treatments page.
If you want your ligament tear to go away as quickly as possible, you need to rest the affected knee. Avoid any physical activities that could cause further injury to your knee. If your tear developed from a knee injury or condition, do your best to avoid the activity that caused the problem in the first place. Consider using crutches to keep the weight off your injured knee and avoid re-injury.
Do regular ColdCure® treatments to control the pain and swelling in your knee. The compression during each treatment helps stabilize any reinjury after activity. Cold Compression relieves pain and reduces the size of those backwards reinjury steps.
You can also focus on healing your underlying knee injury with regular BFST® treatments. This combination will work to finally get rid of your ligament tear.
Around the 4-6 week mark you can start doing some light stretching and strengthening exercises. Slowly work your way back to your regular level of activity. Continue doing BFST® treatments long after the pain and any lump disappear to maintain the healing you've done. Do a ColdCure® treatment if you experience any flare-ups of pain and swelling and after any significant activity.
You don't have to undergo surgery in order to heal a torn ligament or tendon. You can get your body to heal completely with conservative treatments. However, it's possible that your underlying knee condition or injury requires surgery. These are very rare cases.
If the injury is with the meniscus, meniscus surgery involves the removal of part of the meniscus and that is not what you want. That's a path to an eventual full knee replacement, it's just a temporary fix. If you have a meniscus injury, you want to do everything you can to let your meniscus heal on its own.
If surgery is your only option, make sure your post-surgery recovery goes as smoothly as possible by using BFST and ColdCure. Use a ColdCure® Knee Wrap to reduce the inflammation and relieve the pain for the first few days following surgery. Once the inflammation has gone down, promote blood flow to the injured area using a BFST® Knee Wrap. This will improve your circulation and help you heal faster.
Painkillers mask the pain, causing you to continue to stress and injure your knee. This will only make your condition worse. It is understandable that people need relief from the pain, so if you have to take painkillers, restrict them to times when you are off your feet. You can use painkillers to help you sleep. Using them when you are active is a recipe for permanent damage. Your choice of pain killers is important. You can give us a call to discuss which ones are best.
A ColdCure® Knee Wrap is designed to relieve the pain associated with torn connective tissue. This safe and effective pain reliever is also great at bringing down swelling and inflammation. The ColdCure® Wrap is incredibly soothing and provides support and protection for your knee while you wear it. The painkilling element is incredibly powerful and it works instantly - there's no 20 minute wait like with pills.
A torn ligament in the knee can be extremely painful and debilitating. Painkillers such as ASA or acetaminophen are often used to treat the pain but these drugs do nothing to treat the actual condition. In fact, most painkillers are known blood thinners that can have other side effects. Cortisone injections are used in extreme cases but these too are intended to address the pain. They do not promote healing of the injury itself and they put you at a very high risk of further injury.
You don't have to wait for endless months in pain. You can heal much more quickly with the right treatment. For a knee injury, blood flow is the most critical element in rapid recovery. Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy™ (BFST®) gives your knee the blood flow it needs to heal quickly and completely.
BFST® brings extra oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the injured area - a requirement for the body to heal itself. Unfortunately, an injured knee at rest often has restricted blood flow, which extends your healing time and greatly increases the amount of scar tissue that develops. With a King Brand® BFST® Knee Wrap, blood flow can be stimulated in the area of injury while you are at rest. With improved blood flow and without physical activity and the risk of re-injury, you can recover from your knee injury at a surprisingly rapid rate.
I've had such great success with my baker's cyst! It's really given me noticeable improvements. I'm very happy with the products, so now I've ordered the Back BFST.
Connie from New JerseyColdCure Leg | BFST Knee | Pre-Cut TapeJuly 15, 2022
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King Brand® BFST® and ColdCure® Wraps are FDA Registered medical devices. They are intended to prevent, treat and cure soft tissue injuries and chronic conditions. Part of being an FDA Registered company means that our products are made from high quality, biocompatible materials. These devices are manufactured and tested to the highest safety standards in the industry.