Badly Clicking knees

[Gallen]

Hi chaps,

I have really badly clicking knees - to the extent that every step I take, I "click".
Until today there has been no pain but this morning I woke up with a stiff knee and a bit of an ache.

The left Knee is the worst, although the right knee is following suit.

If I sit on the train for example for any period of time (i.e minutes) I feel like I really must straighten my leg.
When I do, it "clicks" ...and all is fine again for a while. It's a loud click too.

If I sit and lift my lower leg to full 90 degree extension, its fine up to 95%.
However it's the last 5% causes the click.

Also if I straighten my leg slowly, I can sometimes feel something like a crunching below my knee cap (below meaning under my knee cap as if viewed standing in front of me and looking at me straight on - below the knee / above the shin).

I've been like this for years and have visited a doctor a good few years ago but he brushed it off without examining me saying that lots of people have clicking knees it. (However my father has recently had a knee replacement and I've also found out that my brother has been told that he will need on too - although he's considered too young at present).

Finally, when doing up my house (lots of kneeling involved) it got to the stage where I would get a sharp shooting stabbing pain in my other knee, if I lent on it from a certain angle towards the side.

Is there anything I can do - or even a specialist I can see?
If I can resolve this and/or prevent it getting any worse I would be keen to do so before its too late.

Thanks,

G.

[rudecherub]

Best advice I was given came from an old Carpet Fitter, he reckoned that sitting on the floor, back straight, say against a wall, and Legs straight out stretched - and doing reps of tensing the thigh muscles so the tendons etc around the knee jiggled worked.

And it did, can't say my knees clicked, but they were painful, this exercise done every couple/few days did the trick.