patients and their problems

Over the years I've seen load of patients who have problems with clicky joints and there seems to be a widespread anxiety that clicking indicates some other form of serious pathology. As a rule I'd say clicking falls into a number of groups, "benign" intermittent clicking caused ,we are told, by gas formation. This is the sort of click when your knees pop getting up. There's the benign muscle click, which is usually a different sound and feels different on palpation, again unually harmless. But there are some "pathological" clicks. There is the click arising from torn "cartilage" structure as in knee meniscal tear, a labral tear in shoulder or hip. Then there is the click arising from a muscle tear as in rotator cuff. A final one is the click from damaged or altered joint surface as in OA or RA. In addition to these there can also be clicks associated with fractures as the result of high velocity injury. So why have I put this in the blog? Last week there was a BBC programme which showed someone asking a doctor about the problem. In the last few days a queation appeared on an internet questions site which I regulary visit. The answers to the internet questioner reminded me about the general level of ignorance about this.