Just like car tires need to be rotated and balanced to avoid excessive wear, the misalignment of your knees will cause abnormal wear of the joints, making you more prone to serious injury and ultimately affect- ing how you get around.

Knees are miraculously designed but they’re also complex. The four bones in each of your knees (tibia, fibula, distal femur and patella) form three joints (patella-femoral joint, tibiofemoral joint and tibiofibular joint), which work with tendons, ligaments, cartilage, meniscus, muscles, bursa, blood vessels and nerves.

When joints are misaligned, your knees may develop problems over time. It could be years before symptoms appear.

Each part of the knee is important to proper function, but they can also become stretched, torn, worn or damaged after sudden trauma, such as a fall or car accident, or experience cumulative micro-trauma from long-term wear and tear.

If your knees are hurting, immediate attention is required. A thorough knee exam by your chiropractor is essential for identifying the cause and determining the proper course of treatment. Your chiropractor may find that the head of the femur is misaligned at the hip, placing a torque on the femur translating down to the knee. Foot and ankle dysfunctions will affect the tibia and fibula causing upward stress towards the bottom of the knee joint. Pain in the knees can be generated by pressure on certain nerves originating from a misalignment of the lower back. Even if your knees don’t hurt, I recommend a visit to your chiropractor for a knee wellness checkup. In the same way your dentist examines your teeth to help you prevent cavities, your chiropractor examines your knees and all other body joints as a routine part of preventive health care.

During most daily activities, the possibility of damage to the knee is greatly reduced when the biomechanics of the knee structure are aligned correctly, functioning the way they were designed.