Detailed guides to painful problems, treatments & more

Noise, noise, noise!

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Noise, noise, noise! I am often asked about the meaning of knee noise (“crepitus”), which can often be quite spectacular — surely the loudest joint in the body. But knee noise in the absence of any other clear signs (like pain) is usually uninterpretable. It does not correlate well with problems. So you can be in trouble ... silently. And you can be fine... noisily. Rule of thumb: crepitus is only of concern if you’re also in pain, and not necessarily even then.

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