The right treatment depends on what is causing the ache

Home care works best when you can repeat it

Choose a short walk, gentle strength work, or water exercise. Keep the effort low enough to repeat the next day. Heat may ease stiffness before you move. Cold may settle soreness once a busy day ends. A gel rubbed on a knee or hand may lower swelling and pain. Ask your doctor if that gel is safe with your medicines and health.

Home care is useful when you can repeat it and watch the result.

QC Kinetix may offer a blood-based shot after the exam

At this clinic, regenerative treatments are non-surgical choices that include a shot made from your blood. The shot is called platelet-rich plasma: plasma is blood's liquid, and platelets help a cut close. Staff spin the drawn blood into layers, then place the layer with more platelets into the sore joint.

Before that choice comes an exam by a doctor or other licensed clinic worker. Ask which daily result could show benefit, such as easier walking or better sleep. You'll also want the steps, cost, possible limits, and other choices explained.

Clear answers make the treatment easier to judge.

Medicines need a clear reason and a safety check

Some medicine is meant to ease soreness for a short time. A gel works where you rub it and sends less medicine through your body. Pills that lower swelling aren't safe for everyone. Heart or kidney concerns can matter. Some joint pain supplements can also change how another medicine works. Show every bottle to your doctor or pharmacist before adding one.

Choose one result to watch, such as less swelling or easier walking.

Surgery remains a reasonable choice for some joints

Surgery may fit when joint damage badly limits daily use. It brings its own risks, healing time, and possible benefit. An X-ray may show damage, but the damage doesn't always explain your soreness. The doctor also considers the exam, your health, symptoms, and past care. Ask what surgery could change and what the healing period would require.

Surgery is a care choice, not a test of character.

Sources

1. OARSI's 2019 guideline is the only major osteoarthritis guideline that grades treatments separately for people with disease in MULTIPLE joints. Its Core Treatments for polyarticular OA are arthritis education and structured land-based exercise. Critically, intra-articular corticosteroid and intra-articular hyaluronic acid were Level 1B/2 options for knee OA only and were NOT recommended for hip or polyarticular OA; oral NSAIDs were not recommended at all for people with cardiovascular comorbidity or frailty; and paracetamol/acetaminophen was conditionally not recommended.

   Bannuru RR, Osani MC, Vaysbrot EE, et al. — OARSI guidelines for the non-surgical management of knee, hip, and polyarticular osteoarthritis.. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 2019. DOI: 10.1016/j.joca.2019.06.011.

2. A Cochrane overview of 21 systematic reviews (381 studies, 37,143 participants) covering rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, low back pain, neck disorder and other chronic pain conditions concluded that physical activity and exercise are interventions with few adverse events that may improve pain severity and physical function - but that the quality of the evidence is low, effects on pain were inconsistent across reviews, and physical function improved significantly in 14 reviews with only small-to-moderate effect sizes. The commonest reported adverse event was increased muscle soreness that settled within weeks.

   Geneen LJ, Moore RA, Clarke C, Martin D, Colvin LA, Smith BH — Physical activity and exercise for chronic pain in adults: an overview of Cochrane Reviews.. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD011279.pub3.

3. A 2025 Bayesian network and dose-response meta-analysis of 92 randomised trials in 6,079 people with knee or hip osteoarthritis found aerobic training most likely to rank first for pain relief (SUCRA 84.7%; SMD -1.00, 95% CrI -1.50 to -0.62), ahead of strength plus flexibility (SUCRA 73.0%), yoga (63.7%), strength alone (55.9%) and flexibility alone (39.8%) - but with NO statistically significant difference between exercise types. Pooled across modalities, the dose-response relationship was U-shaped, meaning more exercise is not linearly better.

   Liang Z, Wang C, Zhang X, et al. — Optimal modality and dose of exercise for relieving pain in patients with knee or hip osteoarthritis: Bayesian pairwise, network, and dose-response meta-analyses.. Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.semarthrit.2025.152855.

4. A Cochrane network meta-analysis of 176 studies and 28,664 participants examined 25 different antidepressants for chronic pain. Duloxetine was consistently the highest-ranked drug with moderate-to-high certainty evidence: at the standard 60 mg dose it gave an odds ratio of 1.91 (95% CI 1.69-2.17) for substantial pain relief and a standardised mean difference of -0.31 (95% CI -0.39 to -0.24) for pain intensity, with the standard dose as effective as the high dose. Evidence for every other antidepressant was low certainty, safety evidence was very low certainty throughout, and there is no reliable evidence for long-term efficacy of any of them.

   Birkinshaw H, Friedrich CM, Cole P, et al. — Antidepressants for pain management in adults with chronic pain: a network meta-analysis.. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2023. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD014682.pub2.

5. A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of 11 randomised trials in 1,801 people with chronic musculoskeletal pain found cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia produced a large effect on insomnia (SMD -1.34, 95% CI -2.12 to -0.56), peaking at about 450 minutes of therapy, with a large effect already at 250 minutes. The effect on pain intensity itself was not significant.

   Salazar-Mendez J, Viscay-Sanhueza N, Pinto-Vera C, et al. — Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.. Sleep Medicine, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2024.07.031.

6. FDA states verbatim that of the products marketed as regenerative medicine - stem cell products, stromal vascular fraction from adipose tissue, umbilical cord blood, Wharton's jelly, amniotic fluid and exosome products - 'None of these products have been approved for the treatment of any orthopedic condition, such as osteoarthritis, tendonitis, disc disease, tennis elbow, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, neck pain, or shoulder pain.' The only FDA-approved stem cell products in the United States are blood-forming (hematopoietic progenitor) cells from umbilical cord blood, approved only for disorders of blood production, and there are currently no FDA-approved exosome products.

   U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Consumer Alert on Regenerative Medicine Products Including Stem Cells and Exosomes. FDA (Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research), 2024.

7. A 2025 Cochrane living review of 25 randomised trials (1,341 participants) found that compared with placebo injection, stem cell injections for knee osteoarthritis MAY slightly improve pain and function up to six months, on LOW-certainty evidence: mean pain was 4.5 of 10 with placebo and 1.2 points better with stem cells; function 46.3 of 100 with placebo and 14.2 points better. Certainty was downgraded for indirectness (source, preparation and dose of cells varied across studies) and suspected publication bias - up to three larger trials were conducted and then withdrawn before reporting. Radiographic progression was not assessed in ANY included study, and the review remains uncertain about harms.

   Whittle SL, Johnston RV, McDonald S, et al. — Stem cell injections for osteoarthritis of the knee.. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2025. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD013342.pub2.

8. A meta-analysis of 198 randomised osteoarthritis trials (16,364 patients in placebo groups, 1,167 in untreated control groups) found the placebo arm itself relieved pain with an effect size of 0.51 (95% CI 0.46-0.55), against 0.03 (95% CI -0.13 to 0.18) in untreated controls. Placebo also improved function and stiffness. The placebo effect was larger when the active treatment effect was larger, when baseline pain was higher, and - relevant to any injected treatment - when the placebo was delivered by injection rather than by mouth.

   Zhang W, Robertson J, Jones AC, Dieppe PA, Doherty M — The placebo effect and its determinants in osteoarthritis: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 2008. DOI: 10.1136/ard.2008.092015.

9. A systematic review of 33 studies reporting CT or MRI findings in 3,110 people with NO symptoms found that degenerative changes are close to universal with age. Disc degeneration was present in 37% of 20-year-olds and 96% of 80-year-olds; disc bulge in 30% at 20 and 84% at 80; disc protrusion in 29% at 20 and 43% at 80. The authors concluded that many imaging-based degenerative features are likely part of normal ageing and unassociated with pain.

   Brinjikji W, Luetmer PH, Comstock B, et al. — Systematic literature review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations.. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 2015. DOI: 10.3174/ajnr.A4173.