Dear Vori
My knees pop every time I go up and down stairs – is that bad?
You describe one of the most common noises associated with the knee. The crunching, grinding, and popping you may hear is called crepitus. Not only can you hear the grinding in your knee, but you may also ‘feel’ it, too. The most common source of these knee noises is your patellofemoral joint—where the back of your kneecap (your patella) connects with your thigh bone (femur), explains Jim Fiechtl, MD, a sports medicine physician at Vori Health. “Grinding can happen here as a result of some roughness of the cartilage behind your kneecap,” Dr. Fiechtl says. “Crepitus is most noticeable when the knee is bent, such as when squatting, kneeling, or going up and down stairs.”