An exam can show what care may help your sore joint

Start with simple care when there is no warning sign

Reduce the motion that clearly brings on the ache. Keep some comfortable movement in the day so the joint does not stiffen. Warmth, cold packs, a brace or a walking aid may help as you slowly do more.

A cream may suit a joint that sits close to the skin. Medicine taken by mouth can trouble your stomach, kidneys, heart or blood pressure. Ask a pharmacist to check everything you take because two products may contain the same medicine.

The exam shows what is sore and what is still uncertain

At the visit, the doctor asks where the soreness sits and which motion brings it on. You may walk, bend or reach while the doctor checks the joint. The exam may show swelling or weakness, while the exact cause may still be uncertain.

An X-ray can show wear, but it cannot prove that the wear causes your soreness. Wear can also appear in a joint that feels fine. Ask whether the wear sits at your sore spot and whether it changes the care you need.

If soreness does not settle, QC Kinetix can explain its non-surgical choices

QC Kinetix can discuss regenerative treatments made from parts of your own blood or bone marrow, the soft tissue inside a bone. At the clinic, the medical provider is the person who examines the joint and reviews care you have tried. These treatments may be discussed as knee or hip surgery alternatives, though surgery may still fit some joints.

Platelet-rich plasma is prepared by separating one part of your blood from the rest for use in a sore joint. Concentrated platelet-rich plasma uses more of that same blood part, though the amount can vary. Both aim to ease soreness in that joint. It is still uncertain whether the concentrated form brings more relief.

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 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.

3. A network meta-analysis of 192 randomised trials in 102,829 patients with knee or hip osteoarthritis found that five oral preparations - diclofenac 150 mg/day, etoricoxib 60 and 90 mg/day, and rofecoxib 25 and 50 mg/day - had a 99% or greater probability of exceeding the minimal clinically important reduction in pain. Topical diclofenac (70-81 and 140-160 mg/day) had a 92.3% or greater probability. Every opioid studied had a 53% or LOWER probability of exceeding that threshold.

   da Costa BR, Pereira TV, Saadat P, et al. — Effectiveness and safety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioid treatment for knee and hip osteoarthritis: network meta-analysis.. BMJ, 2021. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.n2321.

4. An updated individual patient data meta-analysis pooled 39 trials and 20,827 patients with non-specific musculoskeletal pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache or shoulder pain, restricted to trials with unambiguously adequate allocation concealment. Acupuncture was superior both to sham and to no-acupuncture control for every condition (all p<0.001), with differences of about 0.5 standard deviations versus no acupuncture and about 0.2 standard deviations versus sham. Effects persisted with only about a 15% decrease at one year.

   Vickers AJ, Vertosick EA, Lewith G, et al. — Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis.. The Journal of Pain, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2017.11.005.

5. 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.