Knee Pain Treatment Online

Common causes of knee pain

Knee pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal presentations in Australian general practice. The differential depends heavily on age, mechanism (sudden injury vs gradual onset), pain location, and the presence of features like swelling, locking, or giving way.

• Osteoarthritis — pain on use in adults over 50, often with stiffness after rest. Most common cause of chronic knee pain. See osteoarthritis for more depth.
• Patellofemoral pain (runner's knee) — front-of-knee pain, worse with stairs, squatting, and sitting; common in younger active adults.
• Meniscal tear — twisting injury with pop, locking, or catching; often delayed swelling.
• Ligament injury (ACL, MCL, LCL, PCL) — pop at injury, rapid swelling (especially ACL), feeling of instability.
• Iliotibial band syndrome — pain on the outside of the knee in runners and cyclists.
• Patellar tendinopathy — pain just below the kneecap in jumping sports.
• Baker's cyst — swelling at the back of the knee, often associated with underlying meniscal or OA pathology.
• Prepatellar bursitis — swelling and pain over the front of the kneecap, often after repetitive kneeling.
• Gout or pseudogout — sudden hot, red, swollen knee with severe pain (see gout).
• Septic arthritis — hot swollen joint with fever, particularly in immunocompromised patients. Medical emergency.
• Inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid, psoriatic, reactive) — joint stiffness usually worst in the morning, often with other affected joints.
• Osgood-Schlatter disease — anterior knee pain in adolescents, with tibial tubercle prominence.
• Referred pain — from the hip (slipped capital femoral epiphysis in adolescents, hip OA in adults).

When to see a GP, and when to go straight to an ED

Book a GP (in person or via bulk billed telehealth) for knee pain that has lasted more than a few days, is recurrent, interfering with activity, suspected gout or inflammatory arthritis, or not improving with simple measures. Adolescents with persistent knee pain should also be assessed, partly to exclude referred hip pathology.

Attend an emergency department, or urgent care, if you have any of the following:

• Obvious deformity of the knee or lower leg
• Inability to weight-bear at all (cannot take four steps)
• Open wound over the knee
• Severe pain immediately after a fall or twisting injury
• Foot or lower leg that is cold, blue, or numb after the injury
• Significant rapid swelling within hours of injury (consider haemarthrosis)
• Red, hot, swollen knee with fever (consider septic arthritis — medical emergency)
• Sudden severe calf pain, swelling, or unexplained breathlessness (consider DVT or PE)
• Children refusing to weight-bear, with fever, or with limp

For these features, do not delay by booking telehealth — go straight to an emergency department or urgent care.

How a telehealth GP can help

Many causes of knee pain can be diagnosed from a careful history with the patient showing the knee on camera and demonstrating range of motion where safe. Your GP will review pain location, character, triggers, any preceding injury and its mechanism, age-specific considerations, your activity patterns and footwear, and any red-flag features.

During the consult, your GP can:

• Send an eScript for simple analgesia, topical or oral NSAIDs (short course where appropriate), or acute gout treatment per Australian Therapeutic Guidelines
• Issue an imaging referral for X-ray (acute injury per Ottawa Knee Rule, or osteoarthritis assessment), MRI (suspected meniscal or ligament injury, unexplained persistent pain), or ultrasound for selected soft-tissue diagnoses
• Issue a pathology referral for serum urate (gout), FBC and CRP/ESR (infection or inflammation), or a rheumatology panel where inflammatory arthritis is suspected
• Refer you to a physiotherapist, sports physician, or orthopaedic surgeon as appropriate
• Discuss a Chronic Disease Management Plan if eligible, providing Medicare rebates for a limited number of allied health visits
• Issue a medical certificate for work, school, or sport, with light-duty options where appropriate

For eligible Medicare cardholders, the consultation, eScript, referral, and certificate are all bulk billed with no out-of-pocket cost. Medications themselves are usually subsidised under the PBS at your pharmacy.

Osteoarthritis of the knee

Knee osteoarthritis is the most common cause of chronic knee pain in adults over 50. First- line treatment per Australian RACGP and Therapeutic Guidelines is education, weight management where relevant, structured exercise, and physiotherapy. These have at least as much evidence as medications for most people. Simple analgesia and short courses of topical or oral NSAIDs are used for symptom flares. Intra-articular corticosteroid injections, joint replacement, and other interventional options are reserved for severe disease. Most people with knee OA can be managed well by their GP and physiotherapist for many years — joint replacement, when appropriate, is among the most effective elective surgical procedures.

Patellofemoral pain (runner's knee)

Patellofemoral pain syndrome is the most common cause of anterior knee pain in younger active adults. The story is typically gradual onset of pain around or behind the kneecap, worse with stairs, squatting, and sitting (the "theatre sign"), with activity and sometimes after activity. There is usually no significant injury and structural damage is uncommon — the problem is generally one of patellar tracking, quadriceps strength, and hip-stabiliser balance. Treatment is largely conservative: a graded loading and strengthening programme led by a physiotherapist, addressing footwear and training factors, simple analgesia, and avoiding aggravating activities while rehabilitating. Most cases improve over weeks to months with consistent rehab.