Is physical therapy making your knee pain worse? Are you experiencing more pain at the end of the physical therapy session than when you first started? If so, it might make sense to seek out a second opinion.

If you’re looking to find out why physical therapy is making your knee pain worse, you’ve come to the right place. We hear this quite often from some of our patients who have had a bad experience somewhere else.

There’s no question that your knees might feel sore after a physical therapy session but they should not hurt more than when you started. 

Here are some of the reasons why your knee might feel worse after physical therapy. 

First & foremost, your physical therapist might not have addressed the mobility problem in your hips before looking at the knees. So you might wonder why it is important to even look at the hips when we’re talking about your knee pain? Great question. The hips tell the knees what to do – most of the time. 

And that’s because most of the muscles originate in the hips and attach at the knee. The pain that you feel at the knee sometimes can be a result of the tension developed in the hip. Thereafter, it is important that your physical therapist look at the hip before addressing the knee directly. Sometimes loosening the hip will indirectly loosen up the knees. Give it a try and you might be surprised. 

Secondarily, if you’re being pushed to do more than what you can handle during rehab, chances are your knee might flare up more. If you’re experiencing pain while doing the exercise in physical therapy, you might be doing more harm than good. The mentality of no pain no gain does not apply here. The intensity of the exercise should match the capacity of your body to withstand the load. You want to be challenged but not overwhelm – and pain is a “STOP & Examine me” signal that your body is giving off. 

Rather, go slow and give your physical therapist feedback on how the exercise feels so they can gauge and modify the exercise accordingly to fit your “knees”. 

Thirdly, if you’re going straight into your strengthening exercises every time in rehab before loosening up the structures around the hip and the calf, then you might tighten the knees even more – and in return might make your knee pain worse after physical therapy. 

The order of which you do things matter here. Always loosen up the hip and the lower leg before strengthening the knee – or any other body part. This is a golden principle that we stress on your first visit at Empowerment Physical Therapy! Remember, stretch before you strengthen.  

Fourth, you might not have been given the correct set of exercise and the correct orders in which you should do them. As a physical therapist, I can not tell you how important it is to be given the correct set of exercises and the correct order in which you should do them. Why? Because it makes a huge difference in how you feel at the end of the session and your recovery. 

Last but not the least, if your knees past your toes and/or caving inward when you’re squatting, then you’re straining your knee even more. You put an excessive amount of stress on the ligaments/tendons of the knee when your knee passes beyond your toes during squatting. It means you’re squatting with your knees as opposed to using your hips. This is one of the biggest reasons your knees might be hurting more after physical therapy. 

If you have experienced any of the 4 most common reasons why your knee pain might be worse after physical therapy and you would like to seek out a second opinion, I would urge you to take advantage of our free phone consultation by clicking HERE. This is your chance to ask our knee pain specialist any questions/concerns you have so you can make the best decision about your health.