Treating Knee Arthritis Without Surgery

There are a lot of possible ways, and some have rather more evidence than others:

Here’s what works

Let’s start at the top:

• Exercise and physiotherapy: the strongest evidence overall, as strengthening your muscles around the knee reduces pain and improves function more reliably than any medication.
  • In the category of exercise, it’s important to keep moving but avoid or adjust activities that significantly worsen your knee pain to reduce joint stress.
• Weight loss: one of the most powerful interventions if applicable, with even modest loss significantly reducing joint load and pain, especially when using stairs, where forces are greatly increased.
• NSAIDs (over-the-counter or prescription): among the most effective medications for arthritic pain relief, but limited by side effects with long-term use.
• Injections (corticosteroids): effective for short-term relief during flare-ups, though benefits typically fade over weeks to a few months.
• Braces and orthotics: moderately effective, especially if your arthritis affects a specific compartment of your knee.
• Topical treatments: creams or gels (anti-inflammatories, anesthetics, or CBD) for localized relief with fewer systemic effects, though generally less powerful than oral medications.
• Diet changes: supportive rather than primary treatment, but can help reduce inflammation and contribute to weight loss.
• Acetaminophen: safer for the kidneys, but less effective than NSAIDs for most people with knee arthritis, as well as being hepatotoxic (poisons your liver) if overused.
• Hyaluronic acid injections: mixed evidence, with some people benefiting but overall effects being modest and inconsistent.

Some other things discussed that don’t fit well into a ranking from best to worst:

• They made the strange choice to lump “magnets, copper, or red light therapy” together as one item having “weak evidence though placebo might help”, when one of those 3 things is not like the others!
  • Red light therapy is very well-evidenced for helping a good number of health things; it’s simply that arthritis isn’t one of them, and it’s a bit strange that they even brought it up, as it’s not a health claim we’ve seen made for it in the wild. It would be like taking time in the video to say that soap won’t help against arthritis—it’s technically a true statement, but why mention it at all?
• They did a similar thing with supplements, saying “benefits vary and evidence is mixed”, but it rather makes a difference which supplement! So, in the “learn more” section below, we’ve linked an article that talks about 5 supplements that do have good evidence vs arthritis.

For the video itself meanwhile, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like:

Five Supplements That Actually Work Vs Arthritis

Take care!