RICHMOND, Va. -- Knee pain can make simple daily activities like walking or playing with grandchildren a challenge. Dr. Greg Golladay is an orthopedic surgeon and division chief of adult reconstruction at VCU Health. He came to our studio to talk about the range of treatment options available, so you can get back to doing the things that you love. VCU Health is home to the number one hospital in Virginia for orthopedics.
How do we know when it's time to see an orthopedic specialist like yourself if we're having knee pain?
It’s different for everyone, but knee pain shouldn't be something you have to live with. If pain interferes with your daily function, recreation, quality of life, or sleep, I think it's important to see someone who treats knees to get an evaluation and start proper treatment.
What are the treatment options for people with chronic knee pain?
Fortunately, many treatments for knee arthritis and knee pain are things patients can do. We really want to empower patients to take care of themselves. This includes things like weight loss and low impact exercise. We always want to take the least invasive approach possible and the most conservative approach for patients.
Oral or topical pain relievers, braces, sometimes physical therapy, and definitely continuing on an exercise program is important. We also encourage patients to have proper bone health with vitamin D and calcium supplements. Strong bones help to support the joints. And then there are other things like nutraceutical supplementation. Turmeric and tart cherry juice are things that are antioxidant and helpful for arthritis.
For some patients, we offer other treatments like injections and surgery. Surgery is typically the last option that we would recommend.
What has changed about knee replacement in recent years?
One of the best things about my specialty is that there's always something changing. There's always technological innovation. There's always advances that are designed to try to help patients recover more quickly and restore normal function to their knees.
We offer the latest technology and the latest treatments that are customized to the patient and individualized to their own needs – things like less invasive surgery and robotic surgery. Robotic surgery gives us a degree of precision that we never had before. But we also offer all of the non-surgical treatments, including the things I mentioned, plus different types of injections, like steroid injections, gel injections, and certain kinds of biologic injections.
Why should someone choose VCU Health when it comes to their orthopedic care?
Well, for a lot of reasons. First of all, as you mentioned, we are the number one hospital for orthopedic care in the state of Virginia and ranked nationally by U.S. News and World Report. These are things we're very proud of.
Most importantly, it's the people. We have a multidisciplinary team that works together to provide seamless care from initial consultation and throughout the entire process, from surgery, recovery and beyond. I think that we're all committed to doing the very best that we can, from the most routine problems to more complicated ones. And we do a fair amount of revision surgeries for things that had adverse outcomes elsewhere.
All Richmond locations offer same-day appointments and Saturday appointments are available at our Short Pump Pavilion location. We're very proud to be able to provide comprehensive care, from soup to nuts, for everybody who comes through the door.
Call 804-828-7069 to make an appointment with a VCU Health orthopedic specialist. For more information, visit vcuhealth.org/ortho.
