Knee pain is a common complaint that affects people of all ages. Knee pain may be the result of an injury, such as a ruptured ligament or torn cartilage. Medical conditions — including arthritis, gout and infections — also can cause knee pain.

Many types of minor knee pain respond well to self-care measures. Physical therapy and knee braces also can help relieve knee pain. In some cases, however, your knee may require surgical repair.

Symptoms

The location and severity of knee pain may vary, depending on the cause of the problem. Signs and symptoms that sometimes accompany knee pain include:

• Swelling and stiffness
• Redness and warmth to the touch
• Weakness or instability
• Popping or crunching noises
• Inability to fully straighten the knee

Your spine is a column of bones (vertebrae) held together by muscles, tendons and ligaments and cushioned by shock-absorbing disks. A problem in any part of your spine can cause back pain. For some people, back pain is simply an annoyance. For others, it can be excruciating and disabling.

Most back pain — even severe back pain — goes away on its own within six weeks. Surgery usually isn't needed for back pain and generally is considered only if other treatments are not effective.

Frozen Shoulder is an extremely painful condition in which the shoulder is completely or partially unmovable (stiff). It is one of the most painful conditions of the shoulder.

Joint pain can be caused by injury affecting any of the ligaments, bursae, or tendons surrounding the joint. Injury can also affect the ligaments, cartilage, and bones within the joint. Pain is also a feature of joint inflammation (arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis) and infection, and extremely rarely it can be a cause of cancer of the joint. Pain within the joint is a common cause of shoulder pain, ankle pain, and knee pain. Joint pain is also referred to as arthralgia. The sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) chlamydia and gonorrhea can lead to joint pain.

Myofascial pain syndrome is a chronic pain disorder. In this condition, pressure on sensitive points in your muscles (trigger points) causes pain in the muscle and sometimes in seemingly unrelated parts of your body. This is called referred pain.

This syndrome typically occurs after a muscle has been contracted repetitively. This can be caused by repetitive motions used in jobs or hobbies or by stress-related muscle tension.

While nearly everyone has experienced muscle tension pain, the discomfort associated with myofascial pain syndrome persists or worsens. Treatment options include physical therapy and trigger point injections. Pain medications and relaxation techniques also can help.

Muscular dystrophy is a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. In muscular dystrophy, abnormal genes (mutations) interfere with the production of proteins needed to form healthy muscle.

There are many kinds of muscular dystrophy. Symptoms of the most common variety begin in childhood, mostly in boys. Other types don't surface until adulthood.

There's no cure for muscular dystrophy. But medications and therapy can help manage symptoms and slow the course of the disease.

An intramuscular injection is a technique used to deliver a medication deep into the muscles. This allows the medication to be absorbed into the bloodstream quickly. You may have received an intramuscular injection at a doctor’s office the last time you got a vaccine, like the flu shot.

In some cases, a person may also self-administer an intramuscular injection. For example, certain drugs that treat multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis may require self-injection.

What are intramuscular injections used for?

Intramuscular injections are a common practice in modern medicine. They’re used to deliver drugs and vaccines. Several drugs and almost all injectable vaccines are delivered this way.

Intramuscular injections are used when other types of delivery methods aren’t recommended. These include:

• oral (swallowed into the stomach)
• intravenous (injected into the vein)
• subcutaneous (injected into the fatty tissue just under the layer of skin)

Intramuscular injections may be used instead of intravenous injections because some drugs are irritating to veins, or because a suitable vein can’t be located. It may be used instead of oral delivery because some drugs are destroyed by the digestive system when a drug is swallowed.

Intramuscular injections are absorbed faster than subcutaneous injections. This is because muscle tissue has a greater blood supply than the tissue just under the skin. Muscle tissue can also hold a larger volume of medication than subcutaneous tissue.