London Cartilage Clinic
Explore expert articles on cartilage care, regenerative treatments, and practical recovery advice from our specialist team.
An unloader brace applies a corrective force that opens the medial joint space and shifts body weight toward the lateral compartment. Pain relief is not symptom masking but reflects the resulting reduction in mechanical stress on damaged cartilage.
Walking safety after a torn meniscus depends on tear stability, not pain: stable degenerative tears tolerate controlled weight-bearing, whilst unstable fragments risk progressive damage.
PRP can speed early recovery after ankle sprains, MFAT may ease pain in early hip osteoarthritis, and Arthrosamid offers a single long-lasting knee injection; the evidence is strongest for short-term symptom relief, not joint repair or a guaranteed delay to surgery.
Achilles tendinopathy is usually a load-related condition: the tendon is overloaded by training spikes, then settles best with reduced high-impact work and progressive calf strengthening. Return to running and sport is guided by next-day symptoms, morning stiffness and near-symmetrical calf capacity.
Most new knee, shoulder and back pain is managed first with structured rehabilitation, not surgery or immediate scanning. Recurrent giving way, marked weakness, or red flags such as unrelenting night pain, fever, weight loss, trauma or neurological symptoms prompt earlier specialist review.
ChondroFiller is a CE-marked, cell-free type I collagen scaffold placed into focal cartilage defects to support repair. It can be delivered either as a non-surgical ultrasound-guided injection or, in larger or more complex defects, arthroscopically as part of the Liquid Cartilage surgical protocol. Understanding which pathway suits a given defect — and how both compare with microfracture, OATS, and cell-based repair — is the practical question this article addresses.
