Joints

Start with the guide

• Tennis Elbow Explained: Grip Pain, Treatment and Recovery

  Tennis elbow can make gripping and lifting painful. Learn how assessment, activity changes, braces and physical therapy fit together, and when to seek care.

• Joint Pain After 40: What's Actually Wearing Down

  Ordinary wear, an autoimmune disease, or the delayed effect of an old injury — the same ache can be any of three different problems, and each one needs a different next step.

Joint by joint

Each joint fails in its own way, and each one gives away which problem it is differently.

• Knee Pain: What's Different About Where It Hurts

  Front, outside, behind, or a sudden balloon of swelling — four different locations, four different usual causes, and a warning sign that can mimic a blood clot.

• Shoulder Pain After 40: What the Arm Can't Do

  The shoulder sorts by what the arm can still do, not by where it hurts. One ten-second test at home splits most of it: can someone else lift your arm for you?

• Hip Pain Explained: Why It's Often Not the Hip

  The hip sorts by how the pain started before where it is felt — and a lot of what gets called hip pain, especially in the buttock, is not the hip joint at all.

• Plantar Fasciitis: Why the First Step Hurts Most

  The most common cause of heel pain, and the number almost everyone blames wrongly — only 1 in 20 people with a heel spur has any pain from it.

• Lower Back Pain After 40: Why Bed Rest Is the Wrong Move

  MedlinePlus calls long rest a common misbelief and says bed rest is not recommended. Why a scan usually waits 4 to 6 weeks, and the twelve signs that mean calling right away.

• Neck Pain After 40: Stiff Neck Causes and When to Worry

  Most neck pain lasts a few weeks, and a common cause is everyday muscle strain. The age-related wear behind chronic neck pain, where the NHS and MedlinePlus disagree on collars, and the signs that need help now.

• Bursitis: The Swelling That Comes From Kneeling and Leaning

  A small cushion beside the joint, not the joint itself. The AAOS names plumbers, roofers and carpet layers for the knee, long plank holds for the elbow, and the signs that point to infection.

When it's nerve, not joint

Not every ache in a limb comes from the joint itself — sometimes it's a nerve being squeezed along the way.

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Why It Wakes You at Night

  Pressure on the median nerve at the wrist, not a joint problem at all — and why AAOS says most people sleep right through the position that triggers it.

Telling similar diagnoses apart

Same symptom, different disease — and a different plan depending on which it is.

• Osteoarthritis vs Rheumatoid Arthritis: What Differs

  How long the stiffness lasts, whether both sides hurt, and why rheumatoid arthritis is racing a clock that osteoarthritis is not.

• Rotator Cuff vs Frozen Shoulder: Two Fixes, Not One

  Both can improve without surgery, for opposite reasons — one tendon stays torn while function improves around it, the other's joint capsule genuinely loosens on its own.

• Gout After 40: What the Blood Test Can Miss

  A sudden, burning attack that strikes overnight — and the uric acid blood test meant to confirm it, which can read completely normal during the attack itself.

Deciding on treatment

When the question stops being what it is and becomes what to do about it.

• Knee Replacement: Is It Time, and What Will It Fix?

  About one in five patients are not satisfied afterward, and unmet expectations are the strongest reason — so this one checks each common expectation against the evidence.

• Meniscus Tear: What the Scan Can't Tell You

  After 50, most meniscus tears found on a scan sit in knees that do not hurt — and when the surgery was compared with a pretend operation, it came out even.

The supplement question

The one every joint article eventually runs into — and where the evidence genuinely splits.

• Glucosamine for Joint Pain: What the Trials Found

  The largest independent trial found no significant benefit, the most favorable trials were funded by the maker, and two medical bodies read the same evidence and gave opposite advice.

Where joints meet the other sections

This is one man with one body, not four unrelated subjects.

• The testosterone section

  Muscle that used to support a joint loses mass with both ordinary aging and low testosterone — two different mechanisms that can add up in the same knee.

• The sleep section

  Joint pain that flares at night is one of the more common reasons a man's sleep breaks up after 40.

• The prostate section

  Twenty-six articles, from the first change you notice to whether any supplement is worth trying.