You’re sitting through a conference call. Two hours in, you stand up and your knee feels stiff. Or you’re running up the stairs at home, and coming down is worse than going up. Maybe you’ve noticed a clicking sound when you move, nothing dramatic, just there. For most people in their 30s, these moments pass without much thought. Chalk it up to age, sitting too much, not exercising enough. But according to Dr. Parag Sancheti, Orthopedic Surgeon and Chairman of Sancheti Institute of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, these aren’t minor annoyances. They’re signals.
“Knee pain is no longer an old-age problem,” Dr. Sancheti says. “I see it often in patients in their 30s. Most of them are working professionals. Long sitting hours. Low activity. Sudden weekend workouts. This pattern is common. And it puts stress on the knees.” What makes this concerning isn’t that knee pain exists in younger people—it always has. What’s different is that early symptoms are being ignored, and that’s where the real problem begins.
Image: AI
