As you age, the bones and cartilage in your joints begin to wear out and become brittle. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about it. But it often happens to young people as well. Early wear can occur due to heavy physical stress on the joints or the special structure of the body. Such changes can also happen to the hyaline cartilage of the knee joint. It is possible to fight such an ailment, but it is a very laborious process.
What is cartilage
Between the bones in the joints is a layer called cartilage. Her nature was created so that while walking or during any other movements, the bones do not rub against each other. Without this softening tissue, the bones would wear out very quickly. At the same time, any movement would be given to a person with special difficulty and would be accompanied by pain.
Also inside the joint is synovial fluid, which acts as a lubricant. This substance protects the joint from destruction and supplies cartilage with nutrients.
Collagen is responsible for the strength and elasticity of cartilage,also it does not allow them to deform. Cartilage (thanks to collagen) can easily take any shape, and then easily return to its original position.
The composition of cartilage also includes a component that makes up most of the human body - this is water. This component supports cartilage tissue during exercise and is responsible for keeping it elastic.
Types of cartilage
Cartilage tissues can have different physical qualities. Depending on this, they are divided into the following types:
- hyaline;
- elastic;
- fibrous.
Hyaline cartilage
This type of cartilage is located in the knee joint and belongs to the first type of cartilage. It differs from the other two in that it contains fewer fibers and cells than the others. This cartilage is a translucent tissue.
This type of cartilage begins to form in the skeleton when the baby is still in the embryonic stage. In the adult human skeleton, hyaline cartilage forms a thin tissue that covers the surface of the joints. Sometimes there is such a thing as thinning of the cartilage. It can be diagnosed at any age.
Hyaline cartilage thinning: causes
In the knee joints, this cartilage thins out mainly due to constant movement. It is located between the two knee bones, and if for any reason the human body begins to produce less collagen and synovial fluid, then the functions of this cartilage are lost.
Also, the reason that hyaline cartilage is thinned can be:
- Injury. This often happens with people who play sports or hard physical labor. During exercise, a piece of cartilage may break off. Such a spall may be minor and not affect the functioning of the joint, but there are also quite significant injuries that require long-term treatment in a hospital.
- Wear. With heavy loads on the knee, cartilage tissue wears out. It starts to crack and soften.
- Arthrosis. With this deforming disease of the joints, cartilage is erased. If the disease is diagnosed at the beginning of its development, then with the help of various methods of treatment they can be restored. But the problem is that at an early stage the disease is almost asymptomatic.
The process of cartilage wear itself is not accompanied by pain, so it is rather difficult to determine the pathology.
Norm and thickness violation
It is believed that normal he althy cartilage, which is located in the knee, should have a thickness of about 6 millimeters. When thinned, its thickness can decrease by half or more. But this figure may be different, it depends on the structure of the human skeleton.
The first sign that hyaline cartilage is thinning is the appearance of swelling of the knee joint. The tissue located between the bones loses its evenness and decreases in size. This process can be determined thanks to MRI and soundresearch.
Stages of cartilage wear
There are three stages of hyaline cartilage destruction:
- The first stage. During it, with the help of drug therapy and physiotherapy, it is possible to stop the process of destruction and restore cartilage.
- Second stage. Cartilage tissue can be restored only through surgical intervention.
- The third stage is the last one. There is a complete depletion of the cartilage. There is only one way out of this situation - endoprosthetics. When walking in the patient's knee joint, severe pain appears.
How to recover
Chondrocytes are responsible for the formation of cartilage. They can repair cartilage by creating new cells. But there are very few of them in this place - this explains the fact that the restoration of cartilage lasts a very long time. Therefore, if a person was injured and the cartilage began to decrease rapidly, then it will not be possible to restore it with the help of natural chondrocytes.
Specialists believe that the division of chondrocytes can be increased by increasing growth hormone in the human body. In this case, cartilage tissue cells will recover twice as fast.
It is important to know that he althy sound sleep helps to increase growth hormone. Physical training is also used for this purpose. In addition to producing a hormone, they also contribute to the restoration of a damaged joint.
