To someone who loves running, there’s little more frustrating than a case of runner’s knee. That’s because the nagging, sometimes sharp pain can be difficult to treat. It can be tough to spot the cause of runner’s knee; often, it can be caused by several different things, and if they’re not all addressed runner’s knee pain might come back as soon as you start running again, regardless of how long of a break you take to heal. Like we said: frustrating.
The term runner’s knee is something of a catch-all, but technically speaking, it’s “any kind of irritation of the knee, particularly around the kneecap area or the tendons that support the knee,” says Nirav Pandya, MD, associate professor of orthopedic surgery at UC San Francisco. Here’s what typically causes runner’s knee and what to do if it’s nagging you.
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Nirav Pandya, MD, is an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at UC San Francisco.
