5 Common Signs of Bursitis

Bursitis is a condition that can affect the joints in your body — including your shoulders, elbows, and knees. This condition is often painful, and it can keep you from performing your normal activities. Knowing the signs of bursitis can help you get quick treatment to stop your pain for good.

At Peninsula Orthopedic Associates, our expert team helps you determine the cause of your joint pain. Our team is headed up by 10 orthopedic specialists, and they all have the expertise and experience to get you through any orthopedic problems that may arise.

What is bursitis?

Your joints are where bones come together, supported by muscles, ligaments, and tendons. To keep the bones from rubbing against each other and these other tissues, your joints contain small, fluid-filled sacs, called bursae. 

While protective in nature, bursae can also become inflamed from injury or overuse of your joints.

Bursitis is a condition that develops when the bursae within your joint become inflamed. It often occurs from too much pressure on your joints, or from using the joint too much. Bursitis can lead to a number of different symptoms.

5 signs of bursitis

When one of your joints is affected by bursitis, you may experience a number of symptoms. Bursitis can either come on suddenly or develop slowly over time. 

Depending on the specific joint that’s affected, you may notice a number of telltale signs of bursitis. Here are five:

1. Pain 

The bursae in your joint become inflamed with bursitis. Inflammation often leads to pain. With bursitis, the pain usually gets worse when you use your joint. The pain may be achy and throbbing at times.

2. Redness

Your affected joint may begin to look red, especially if the bursitis is close to the surface of your skin. The inflammatory response that happens with bursitis causes swelling in the bursae and surrounding tissues, leading to redness of the skin.

3. Swelling

When the bursae are damaged, your body swoops in and causes inflammation to protect the area. This is why you often notice swelling in the affected joint.

4. Limited range of motion

The swelling in your affected joint ultimately causes problems with movement. Any time there’s inflammation, it’s hard to move the joint properly. This is also true because of the pain you’re experiencing with bursitis.

5. Tenderness 

The affected joint will likely be tender to the touch. Bursitis causes pain within the joint, but the inflammatory response can also lead to pain on the surface.

Bursitis treatments

If you have any of the above signs, you may be dealing with bursitis in your joint. It’s important to recognize these signs early on, to ensure that you get the proper care and treatment.

At your appointment, our team examines the problematic joint to determine if bursitis is causing your symptoms. The team also takes blood samples and X-rays to determine the extent of the condition.

To rule out any infection in your joint, the team may also use a syringe to get fluid from a bursa sac. After that’s ruled out, the team offers a number of conservative therapies to get rid of your pain and calm your bursitis.

Rest and ice are two of the main treatments for bursitis. Elevating the joint while you’re resting or applying a compression bandage can help with the swelling associated with this condition.

The team may also recommend taking anti-inflammatory medications to ease the discomfort in your joint. If this measure doesn’t work, they can also give you a steroid injection in your joint to relieve the inflammation.

If the bursitis recurs in your joint, surgical removal of the inflamed bursa may be necessary. However, conservative measures are normally enough to ease your symptoms so you can get back to your normal activities.

If you have bursitis and need treatment, call our office in Daly City, California, today, or book an appointment online with one of our doctors now.