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Suprapatellar bursitis are fluid-filled sacs that cushion and reduce the friction between bones, tendons, and ligaments in the joints. You have a suprapatellar bursa above your knee. It’s between your thigh bone and your quadriceps tendon. You can bend and straighten your knee with the help of the suprapatellar bursa. It helps the quadriceps tendons move over your femur.
Suprapatellar Bursitis
Bursae are tiny, fluid-filled sacs that are found all over the body, especially where tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bones rub against each other. They feel like little cushions. There are several bursae in the knee. Between the quadriceps tendon and the lower femur is the suprapatellar bursa. It is on top of the patella (kneecap).
The suprapatellar bursa protects nearby structures, reduces friction, and cushions the front of the knee. A lot of knee bending and straightening happens when you walk, run, and jump. The bursa facilitates the smooth movement of the quadriceps tendon over the bone. Suprapatellar bursitis is when a bursa gets irritated or inflamed. This occurs frequently in joints that move frequently, such as the knee, shoulder, and elbow.
Signs of Suprapatellar Bursitis
If you experience any of these symptoms just above your knee joint, you may have suprapatellar bursitis:
- Painful or tender in a dull, aching way
- Being red or swollen
- Loss of heat or less movement
These signs may show up when you do things that put pressure on the area, like kneeling, jumping, or running. For instance, if you take a violent fall and hit your knee, you might suddenly feel sick. On the other hand, repeated use or stress on the area, such as prolonged kneeling, may cause symptoms to appear more slowly.
Diagnosis of Suprapatellar Bursitis
Before doing anything else, your doctor will look at your knee and take a medical history. One way is to compare both knees with their conditions. Another way is to test the range of motion of the hurt knee and feel the area around it for swelling, pain, or warmth. You should also look to see if your suprapatellar bursa shows any signs of infection. They will then diagnose your bursitis with imaging tests. Some imaging tests that might be used are:
- X-rays, ultrasound, brain scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
- Pain management in fort worth may recommend blood tests to confirm or rule out other conditions that could be hurting your knee, like gout or rheumatoid arthritis.
- Your doctor may use a needle to remove a small amount of fluid from your suprapatellar bursa for testing if they suspect an infection.
How Do You Treat Suprapatellar Bursitis?
The goal of treatment for suprapatellar bursitis is to reduce swelling, ease pain, and speed up the healing process. However, the exact treatment will depend on the cause of the condition and how bad it is. To treat suprapatellar bursitis, people typically combine the following treatments:
- The first step in treating suprapatellar bursitis is to rest the knee that hurts and stay away from activities that make the pain worse, like squatting, kneeling, jumping, and kicking. If you don’t get enough rest, you keep irritating the bursa, which slows down healing, like picking at a sore.
- Putting an ice pack or cold compress on the hurt area can help reduce swelling and ease pain. Cold therapy is usually done several times a day for 15 to 20 minutes at a time.
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and Advil, can alleviate the pain and inflammation associated with quadriceps tendon bursitis. Your doctor will prescribe a course of antibiotics if you have septic arthritis or believe you have a bacterial infection.
- In physical therapy for suprapatellar bursitis, electrotherapy treatments like ultrasound or shortwave diathermy are often used to reduce inflammation in the bursa, and then a rehab program is put in place.
- As a key part of treating suprapatellar bursitis, exercises are usually a mix of strengthening and stretching exercises for the knee. These help the knee become stronger, more stable, and more flexible while also reducing pressure on the bursa. It’s especially important to do strengthening and stretching exercises for the quads to not only ease the pain of bursitis but also keep it from coming back.
- Direct injections of corticosteroids into the bursa can alleviate severe pain and inflammation.
- If you have a lot of swelling, your pain management specialist fort worth may use a needle and syringe to drain the fluid.
- Treatment for suprapatellar bursitis typically does not require surgery. But surgery to remove the bursa might be an option for people with chronic or recurring bursitis that doesn’t get better with non-invasive methods.
The goal of treating prepatellar bursitis is to reduce the swelling of the bursa to ease pain and stop fluid from entering the knee joint. There are a lot of different ways to treat knee swelling that can help.
How to Stop Suprapatellar Bursitis?
To avoid getting suprapatellar bursitis, you need to lower the chance of irritating and inflaming the bursa. Here are some ways to stop this from happening:
- Wear knee pads: If you do things like gardening or construction work that require you to crawl or kneel, wear knee pads to protect and cushion your knees.
- Don’t prolonged kneeling: To keep the suprapatellar bursa from getting overused and irritated, try to avoid kneeling or squatting for long periods of time as much as possible.
- If you play sports or do activities that involve hitting something or falling, you should learn and practice the right way to do things to keep your knees from getting hurt.
- Adequate warm-up: Do a full warm-up routine before any physical activity to get your muscles and joints ready for what they will be doing.
Keeping your weight at a healthy level lowers your risk of knee pain and bursitis.
Conclusion
Most cases of suprapatellar bursitis get better on their own in a few weeks. Rest, over-the-counter painkillers, and icing are the best treatments. If the bursitis is severe or keeps coming back, draining or removing the suprapatellar bursa can help. If you have new knee pain, you should see your doctor. A faster diagnosis means faster treatment and better results, so you can get back to your normal level of activity faster.
