A Surprising Way to Relieve Your Hip and Knee Pain

If you’ve been experiencing pain in your hips or knees, the problem may surprisingly be related to your feet. Today Dr. Hubert Lee at CarePlus Foot & Ankle Specialists in Bellevue, WA is sharing information regarding what could be causing your discomfort. 

What is Gait?

Everyone walks with a certain gait, which includes:

• The way your heels hit the ground when you walk
• What occurs when you shift your weight completely onto one foot
• The size of your strides
• How much of your foot comes in contact with the ground
• How your feet push off from the surface with each step
• The biomechanics of your knee, hip, and leg muscles and how they all work together.

So, in other words, the different parts of your body form a kind of chain, so that how one part moves affects how the other parts will move in response. If there’s a problem with how your foot moves, that problem can work its way up the body and cause hip, knee, or even pain in the lower back.

Pain in Your Hips and Knees

Two common contributors to hip and knee pain are pronation issues and flat feet.

In people with flat feet, the feet have little or no arches. All people are born with flat feet, and healthy arches typically develop over time, but some people remain flat-footed and, in some cases, they experience stiffness, lack of flexibility, and pain in the middle of the foot.

Pronation is how your foot hits the ground and flattens when you walk. When someone overpronates, their ankles dip down too far. Under-pronation occurs when the foot doesn’t flatten out enough, stressing the outside of the foot.

These two particular foot problems may be the reason for the pain in your hips or knees. In some cases, the solution is as easy as changing the kind of shoes you wear, and custom orthotics and physical therapy can often help.

If you are experiencing pain in your hips and/or knees and contact the office of
Dr. Hubert Lee at CarePlus Foot & Ankle Specialists in Bellevue, WA today
(425) 455-0936 to schedule a consultation to determine if pronation issues, flat feet, or gait issues are creating problems further up your body.