When you're young, chances are that your knees don't ever bother you and simply do their job without any trouble. But as you grow older, you may start to feel stiffness and pain or experience joint popping from one or both of your knees. Why exactly does this happen and what can you do about it? Read this guide to find out.

How They're Normally Supported

When you're young and healthy, your knees are supported by a cushion of cartilage between the bones. This keeps the bones from touching each other and is regularly squeezed and compressed when your knees flex. This cartilage also exists in other joints, but it particularly takes a beating in the knees since your knees are responsible for holding you up when you walk and stand, which puts them under considerably more pressure than, say, your elbows.

As You Age

When you get older, collagen and cartilage naturally start to break down a bit. This is because they become older and aren't restored as efficiently by the body. When this happens, the bones start to slip closer together in the knee joint. This is what initially leads to the popping and cracking noises that may be coming from your knees when you walk or flex them.

As you continue to age, the cartilage can start to wear down entirely. Certain exercises, like walking and running, have been shown to support this cartilage's replenishment, but in the end, most people lose nearly all or all of the cartilage in their knees by a certain age.

Most people won't experience it until old age, but bones rubbing on bones cause a lot of pain. Bones do contain nerve endings and aren't designed to be rubbing up against something that's just as strong and hard as they are. So without cartilage, your knees are likely to be more painful and can even experience problems like swelling and inflammation.

Getting Help

In the end, there's not much that can be done to restart the body's process of building cartilage in the knees, but that doesn't mean that you're doomed to deal with the pain. If your knees are getting in the way of your daily life, then it's time to consider knee replacement surgery.

Knee replacement surgery replaces the missing cartilage with high-grade plastic that's designed to flex, retract, and bounce back the way that natural cartilage does. This instantly takes the pressure off your bones and can make you feel young all over again.