Your knee started aching on a Saturday run three weeks ago. It is not getting worse. It is not getting better either. You have been icing it, skipping the hills, and telling yourself it will settle down. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the question you have not asked out loud: is this the kind of thing a doctor should look at, or am I being dramatic?
It is a fair question, and the honest answer is that plenty of aches really do resolve on their own. The trick is knowing which ones. Here is a practical way to think about it.
Start with the symptoms that should not wait
Before the judgment calls, the clear ones. Some symptoms need urgent evaluation rather than a wait-and-see week. Go to an urgent care or an emergency department, depending on severity, if you have:
- An obviously deformed joint or limb, or a bone that looks or feels out of place
- Inability to put weight on a leg or use a limb at all after an injury
- Rapid, severe swelling within an hour or two of the injury
- Numbness, pins and needles, or real weakness in the limb, or a foot or hand that looks pale or feels cold
- A hot, red, very painful joint with fever, which can signal infection
- An open wound over an injured joint
- Head injury with vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, seizure, repeated loss of consciousness or increasing drowsiness
- Chest pain, breathlessness or fainting with exercise, which is not a musculoskeletal question at all and needs prompt medical attention
For anything life threatening, call 911. This list is not exhaustive, and if something feels alarming to you, it is reasonable to be seen.
When waiting a week or two is reasonable
Most everyday aches are not in that category. Many patients do fine giving a problem a little time when all of the following are true:
- The pain came on gradually rather than from one specific moment of injury
- You can still walk, climb stairs and do daily tasks, even if sport is uncomfortable
- There is no significant swelling, locking, catching or giving way
- The pain is trending down, not up, over several days
- You can identify something that changed: new shoes, a mileage jump, a new class, a long drive, a weekend of yard work
What that waiting period should actually look like
Waiting it out does not mean doing nothing and hoping. It means reducing the thing that irritates the tissue while keeping the rest of your body moving. For most people that looks like backing off volume and intensity rather than stopping entirely, swapping to activity that does not reproduce the pain, and giving it a defined window instead of an open-ended one.
Pick a date. Two weeks is a reasonable checkpoint for a gradual-onset ache. If you are not clearly better by then, that is useful information rather than a failure, and it is a good moment to get it looked at.
Reasons to make the appointment sooner
A few patterns tend to be worth evaluating early rather than late, because the explanation matters and because the right plan early on can save months of guessing:
- A pop or snap at the moment of injury, especially followed by swelling or a sense that the joint is not trustworthy
- The joint locks, catches or gives way during normal movement
- Pain that wakes you at night or is present at rest, not just with activity
- Pain that has been around more than four to six weeks, regardless of how mild it is
- The same injury keeps coming back every time you return to activity
- Bone pain that worsens steadily with running, which is a pattern worth ruling things out on
- Any injury in a young athlete mid-season, where growth plates and return-to-play decisions are in play
- You are losing range of motion, for example a shoulder that will no longer reach overhead
None of these automatically mean something is badly wrong. They mean the question deserves an answer instead of a guess.
You do not have to be an athlete
The name of the specialty does it no favors. Sports medicine is about muscles, tendons, joints and movement, and most of the people who benefit from it are not competing in anything. Shoulder pain from a desk and a dog leash counts. A back that hurts after a weekend of moving boxes counts. Hip pain that started when you took up pickleball counts.
Our sports medicine page lists the conditions we evaluate most often, from runner’s knee to rotator cuff problems. If your issue is not on the list, that does not mean it is not worth asking about.
What actually happens at the visit
Patients often picture an X-ray and a prescription. In practice, most of the value is in the history and the physical exam.
- The story. What you were doing, what changed recently, what makes it better or worse, what you are trying to get back to.
- The exam. Watching how you move, testing strength and range of motion, and examining the joint and the structures around it.
- Imaging only when it will change something. Sometimes an ultrasound or X-ray in the office answers the question. Often the exam already has.
- A plan with a timeline. What to do, what to avoid, what should happen by when, and what to do if it does not.
A longer appointment helps here, which is part of why we built the practice around longer visits. Movement problems are hard to sort out in a few minutes.
Who to see first
For most new musculoskeletal complaints, starting with a primary care sports medicine physician is a sensible first step. The majority of these problems are managed without surgery, and when a surgical opinion is the right call, the referral can be made with the work-up already done. We covered that division of labor in who to see first and when we refer you out.
Dr. Kroner has practiced family medicine and sports medicine since 2013, with sports medicine experience ranging from professional and Olympic athletes to high school sidelines. Sports medicine consultations are included in a primary care membership, and standalone visits are open to people whose primary care is elsewhere. A direct primary care membership is not health insurance, so keep your health plan for the things a membership does not cover.
If you are still not sure
A reasonable rule of thumb: if the pain is changing how you move, limiting what you want to do, or has outlasted a couple of weeks of sensible rest, it is worth an evaluation. Anything symptomatic deserves a look from a physician rather than a search engine.
Book a free 30-minute meet and greet with Dr. Kroner or call 720-807-9961. Ridgeview Direct Care is at 4045 Wadsworth Blvd #300, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033, open Monday through Friday, serving Arvada, Lakewood, Golden, Edgewater and west Denver.
This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for evaluation by a physician. See our medical disclaimer.