Pregnant and Knee Paint

You sound too young, but it could be osteoarthritis. If so, you need to strenghthen the muscles above your knees. The more you favor the knees, the more your pain develops. There are several key exercises: Lie on your back and bend one knee and lift the other and hold. Do that about ten times on each side--if both knees are troubling you. Also try putting a pad under your knee and then press down as hard as you can, hold, and repeat 10 or so times with each leg. Constantly keep in mind that the upper leg muscle has to be strong to support your knee. Another is to use a stretch band and put on a solid leg of furniture and then lift your leg out sideways and hold and then slowly bring it back. Repeat. Finally, put your foot on a stair or some sort of elevation and press down using the muscle in your upper leg, stretching your leg. You have to get those upper muscles strong again and that will give you ultimate relief in the knees. Good luck. P.S. I learned I have no cartilege left and the two knee bones are rubbing together. The exercises hurt, but I'm decidedly better. I was favoring my bad knee so much that the muscle lost strength which doubled my trouble. You should get an x-ray and learn where you stand exactly.

totally agree with the fish oil but in addition to try Garlic it's an anti inflammatory along with a few other vitamins which is good for the baby any way email me if you would like to know more ____@____.com

good luck

Hi R.C.,

I am a mom and personal trainer. Your knee pain is probably associated with the weight gain and is quite common. I would do 30 minutes of walking each day if you can. Do you have access to a pool? Water exercise is great for that and low impact as well. Let me know if you have anymore questions. My e-mail is ____@____.com.

You might try a chiropractor. I know mine helps with my knee pain.......I wasn't seeing a chiro when I was pregnant with my second and had the knee pain....so don't know if it would have made a difference then.. but it does now.

J.

Try taking a Fish oil supplement that also has Flax and Borage oil in it. They come in capsule form so you don't even have to taste it. Also, you could try icing your knees in the evening. You don't want to go into tomorrow with today's swelling, ever. That just makes it worse and since you're pregnant, you can't really take things like ibuprofen or Alieve to keep the swelling down so ice is one of your best bets and if you can get off your feet sometime in the evening before bed, I'd suggest elevating your feet and putting ice packs (or bags of frozen veggies works nicely) on your knees for a while. You may also wish to try a patella band (you can get one at Academy) to help support your knee. And you may want to look up some exercises and stretches to help strengthen and balance your thigh muscles. Prenatal yoga would be a great way to address that. You could also try exercising in a pool, which will feel good to you during the summer months for sure. And please be sure you're drinking lots of fluids to help allay swelling and make sure your body is functioning properly.

Did your knees hurt/grind/creak before you were pregnant? Mine did (family history of creaky knees + a love of martial arts) and after several visits to Austin Sports Medicine, I was doing special stretches and exercises several times a week (part of my treatment plan. the Drs there said a lot of women end up having knee, back and hip problems b/c often their thigh and hip muscles are tight, imbalanced and/or weak) and taking Glucosamine-Chondroitin (Osteo-BiFlex) every day to keep that in check. Then when I became pregnant, I wasn't allowed to take glucosamine (there's not enough research to know its completely safe for a developing baby)...I didn't want crazy knee problems so my Dr. suggested I take fish oil while I was pregnant. It helped me greatly and now that my little one has arrived, I continue to use it. My knees still creaked on the stairs in my pregnancy, but they didn't hurt all the time and weren't crazy swollen until the very very end of my pregnancy when everything was swollen (my hands were often numb i was so swollen). i hope this helps you!

It could be due to your center of balance changing... but if it were me I'd run it by my doc to make sure it wasn't some sort of wierd autoimmune thing triggered by pregnancy.

I know ligaments loosen during pregnancy, but I don't think it happens as early as 10 weeks. And I would want my doc to rule out stuff like rheumatoid arthritis.