Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
close window
Housecall Archives
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
close window
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Lifestyle and home remedies
By Mayo Clinic staffTaking care of yourself when you have water on the knee includes:
- Rest. Avoid weight-bearing activities as much as possible when your knee is painful and swollen.
- Ice and elevation. Cold therapy can help control pain and swelling. Apply ice to your knee for 15 to 20 minutes every two to four hours. You may use a bag of ice, frozen vegetables or an iced towel cooled down in your freezer. When you ice your knee, raise your knee higher than the level of your heart, using pillows for comfort.
- Pain medication. Acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) is often effective at relieving pain. NSAIDs (Advil, Motrin, others) are effective for relieving pain and inflammation. If these don't relieve the pain, ask your doctor about prescription medications.
- Muscle-toning exercises. If your thigh (quadriceps) muscle or hamstring muscles are weak, your doctor may refer you to a physical therapist to learn how to strengthen these muscles to better support your knee.
- Managing your weight. Losing weight will minimize the amount of weight your knees have to support when you engage in weight-bearing activities.
