Bruised Knee – What Is Knee Contusion & How to Treat It?

What to do for a bruised knee? For simple at-home right-away remedy procedures, there are several simple ways to properly heal the bruised knee. They are:

• Avoid Further Swelling: Start by applying an icy cold pack on the pain immediately in order to minimize or preventing further swelling. The reason is with cold temperatures, the blood will contract and slows the bleeding process. But remember not to apply the ice directly to the skin. Use a towel to cover the skin first before the ice pack. Apply 15 to 20 minutes of ICE procedure for 3 or more times a day. Some people even recommend 15 minutes every hour on the first day of the injury.
• Stop activities that may worsen the bruised knee condition such as running or if possible, walking as well.
• Rest the knee while placing a small pillow under the knee to provide more comfort and also elevate the injured area.
• Take Medicinal Precaution: If the pain is hard to bear, usually for the children. Pain Killers such as acetaminophen can be used to reduce the pain. Another natural medicine such as the “Chinese Spray” or usually called Yunnan Baiyao in Chinese terms is also applicable to help to reduce the bruising and help with the internal bleeding recovery process.
• Stop Smoking: One of the healing processes also necessarily to be kept in mind is to STOP SMOKING. Because smoking will slow the healing process by delaying the tissue repair and decreases the blood supply.

Bruised Knees Causes?

Sometimes bruises may occur on knees where no hard-impact accident occurred. As the old saying quotes by Oscar Wilde “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

The reason behind the unexplained bruises on knees may not occur because of an impact. But maybe because of the daily stress or even normal daily activities.

For example for a pregnant woman proves to be a more high risk of knee injury as the body will have increased weight as resulting in the shifted center of gravity of the body. Hormonal changes within the woman’s body might also weaken the ligament of the knee and makes them more lax resulting in fragile ligament structures.

Conclusion: The person may not realize the damage made by walking in excessive normal weight immediately but the damage will gradually be accumulated over time and one day will emerge as knee bruises.

Bruised Knee Symptoms

Bruised knee usually occurred after a hard strong impact accident befall on a person. Such as falling from a motorcycle, hit by a car accident, or even when doing daily exercise routines such as playing football or basketball which each sports activities requires heavy body contact.

After the impact, usually the person will feel immediate intense pain in the span of 24 hours. They will feel the pain right on the kneecap and also underneath the kneecap.

Bruised Knee Pain

The injured person will feel the pain and the knee part would have the tenderness presence when being touch by any objects. While the swelling usually can be seen directly after the impact but the bruising process will slowly occur in the next day.

Bruised Knee Swelling

In some cases, the swelling may cause the injured area bigger three or four times the actual size. That would mean more serious tissue damage or traumatized tendons or even torn cartilages. For more complete diagnostic in order to find out the seriousness of the injury, MRI or CT scan is usually performed. Normally the contusions for the knee are rarely serious.

How Long Does a Bruised Knee Take to Heal?

The time takes for the bruised knee is varied. It depends on how severe the case of injury is.

A mild bruised knee could be healed in just a few days with normal “At Home” Remedy first aid measures. Simply makes a proper easy treatment may possibly heal the injury perfectly.

But for severe cases such as having a heavy accident likes being hit by a car or fell down from stairs or after being hit by an object powerfully, the injury may not be possibly healed in such a short time. Usually, for these types of cases, medical professionals such as doctors would be directly involved.

And depending on the treatment, the healing process may actually longer than a couple of months.

How to Treat a Bruised Knee (Knee Contusion)?

Depends on the severity of the injury, the treatment will be performed differently as well. For mild or light injury, the so called PRICE remedy principle procedures is the best treatment for the knee bruises.

PRICE Procedures

What is the PRICE Procedures? They are:

Protect
By using a support, splint or protection cast in order to preventing further external harm to the injured area.

Rest
Stop training or performing activities that might further worsen the condition of the injury. This is one of the most simple components but also the most difficult to be performed. The reason is some people just CAN’T sit around and being unproductive for couple of days.

Ice
Icing therapy is the one of the most frequent used method for this type of injuries. As this is a very easy, cheap, and little expertise of skill required to implement for the bruised knee injury.

Compression
Compression is performed in order to minimize the amount of swelling. One of the most effective way compression is by using the compression bandage. Because it is easy to apply and it could stop the bleeding at an accelerated rate and minimize the swelling.

Elevate
This step allows for the injured fluid to be drained away by the gravity itself. This could result in decreasing the swelling as well as the pain itself.

Mild injury aside, the severe injury of bruised knee should be directly handled by a medical professional. If left untreated, the possibilities of unable to walk might even occur.

Fractured Patella
Severe cases such as Fractured Patella could not be treated by the PRICE Principle, the doctor normally need to x-ray the injury for complete further examination. For a complete Fractures, it will require a surgical repair for the fixation of the patella.

And professional rehabilitation therapy is required following the surgical session.