Here’s some potential good news for runners or people fresh off knee surgery: Your creaking knees might not indicate deeper health issues. New research finds that knee creaking is not associated with a greater risk of arthritis in people recovering from surgery.
Scientists at La Trobe University in Australia led the study, which examined the long-term outcomes of young patients who underwent anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Though people with knee creaking did experience more pain on average in the first year following surgery, they ultimately fared no worse than people without creaky knees years later.
The findings suggest that creaky knees might not be a reliable predictor of future arthritis, even in people healing from traumatic injuries, the researchers say.
A noisy universal
Having a snap, crackle, and pop knee is formally known as knee crepitus.
It’s a common condition, estimated to affect about 41% of the general public. While people of all ages can have knee crepitus, including people who aren’t experiencing any pain, studies have shown it’s especially common in people with osteoarthritis. That’s led some doctors to argue that crepitus should be seen as a clear early warning signal of arthritis in high-risk groups, including knee surgery patients.
To test out this hypothesis, the researchers recruited 112 young patients (median age 28) who had their ACL repaired. Following surgery, the participants’ knee health was tracked for five years, which included people’s self-assessment of relevant symptoms like knee pain and crepitus; the participants also received an MRI of their knee one year and five years after the surgery.
Creaking but not broken
Though people with crepitus did have a tougher time at first, things eventually balanced out for both groups, the researchers observed.
“We found that those with knee crepitus demonstrated more than two and a half times greater rates of full-thickness cartilage defects in the kneecap area, with more pain and poorer function early on,” said lead author Jamon Couch, a physical therapist and graduate researcher at La Trobe, in a statement from the university. “But over the next four years, those with crepitus did not experience worse pain and function compared to those without knee crepitus.”
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