Knee bother? The normal way to treat a Baker’s cyst is to ignore it

There are a lot of conditions which are named after the activity which were thought to cause them.

Farmer’s lung, for instance, tends to affect agricultural workers, while fiddler’s neck is a problem for some violinists.

Recently, my patient thought he had been affected by something called a Baker’s cyst as he’d been making a lot of bread at home.

It’s not a condition that affects unfortunate Greggs employees, though.

I explained to my patient – with the help of Google – that William Baker, a physician from the 19th Century, discovered the cyst, and it was subsequently named after him. Now you know!

A Baker’s cyst is a swelling which appears behind the knee, sometimes for no apparent reason.

In other cases though, it can be related to an underlying problem in the knee – arthritis or a bit of cartilage damage might do it.

In these cases, it is thought that there is a bulge in the joint capsule at the back of the joint, leading to a cyst filled with the joint’s lubricating synovial fluid.

In other cases, synovial fluid leaks from the joint into the popliteal bursa, a small sac at the back of the knee which helps to reduce friction.

A Baker’s cyst may be small and cause few problems or it may grow in size and begin to bulge or become painful.

If it is large enough, it may even become difficult to bend the knee.

Sometimes it’s possible to drain these cysts but often they’ll simply reappear so what’s usually recommended is leaving them alone. They may disappear over time – particularly if the knee joint is healthy.

If the Baker’s cyst has an underlying cause, like arthritis in the knee, then we’ll treat that.

Painkillers can help with the soreness, while ice can reduce the swelling, and there’s always crutches if it gets particularly irksome.

And steroid injections might help but, like drainage, this doesn’t stop the cyst coming back.

Surgery is rarely needed, but may be done at the same time as operating on an underlying cartilage problem.

Sometimes the cyst bursts, and fluid leaks down into the lower leg, which can cause symptoms similar to deep vein thrombosis.

If this happens, hospital attention is usually needed.