If your knee is severely damaged by arthritis or injury, it may be hard for you to perform simple activities such as walking or climbing stairs. You may even begin to feel pain while you're sitting or lying down. Symptoms may include severe knee pain that limits your everyday activities, including walking, going up and down stairs and standing up from a chair. You may find it hard to walk more than a few blocks without significant pain and you may need to use a cane or walker. You may also experience:

• Moderate or severe knee pain while resting, day or night.
• Chronic knee inflammation and swelling that doesn't improve with rest or medications.
• Knee deformity, a bowing in or out of your knee.
• Knee stiffness or the inability to bend and straighten your knee.

If you are dieting and walking to lose weight for your health, it is important to undergo a medically supervised diet and exercise program. A rule of thumb would be to begin with simple walks that you tolerate well and gradually increase the pace or distance.  If you experience pain in the knees, don’t give up walking since it is so related to your everyday function!  Here are some suggestions:

• Walking is a sport — you need to be prepared with the proper equipment.  Make sure have proper supportive walking shoes.  Due to your size and the knee joint arthritis, you may also need foot inserts for shock absorption and joint alignment.  In addition, walking on softer surfaces, like some tracks, and avoiding harder surfaces or excessive hills should be more comfortable for you.
• Arthritis symptoms get better with controlled exercise and activity unless the cartilage is gone.   But, mixing walking with other cardiovascular exercises, such as pool therapy, recumbent stationary or arm bicycling can continue the calorie-burning effects of exercise without as much joint stress.  Perform strengthening and stretching exercises to ensure that there are no significant muscle problems that are contributing to your knee pain.
• Physical therapists can assist in you in many aspects of your weight loss and exercise.  After assessing your posture, strength, flexibility, exercise tolerance, and your athletic footwear, they can prescribe a specific exercise program for you, as well address any shoe inserts you may need.  Physical therapy facilities often have treadmills that can assist in unloading some weight on your legs while exercising. Treatments will vary, depending upon what exactly is causing your knee pain.

Medications
Your doctor may prescribe medications to help relieve pain and to treat underlying conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis or gout.

Therapy for Knee Pain

• Physical therapy - Strengthening the muscles around your knee will make it more stable. Training is likely to focus on the muscles on the front of your thigh (quadriceps) and the muscles in the back of your thigh (hamstrings). Exercises to improve your balance are also important.
• Orthotics and bracing - Arch supports, sometimes with wedges on the inner or outer aspect of the heel, can help to shift pressure away from the side of the knee most affected by osteoarthritis. Different types of braces may help protect and support the knee joint.

Injections

• Corticosteroids. Injections of a corticosteroid drug into your knee joint may help reduce the symptoms of an arthritis flare and provide pain relief that lasts a few months. The injections aren't effective in all cases. There is a small risk of infection.
• Hyaluronic acid. This thick fluid is normally found in healthy joints, and injecting it into damaged ones may ease pain and provide lubrication. Experts aren't quite sure how hyaluronic acid works, but it may reduce inflammation. Relief from a series of shots may last as long as six months to a year.

Surgery
If you have an injury that may require surgery, it's usually not necessary to have the operation immediately. Before making any decision, consider the pros and cons of both nonsurgical rehabilitation and surgical reconstruction in relation to what's most important to you.

Conclusion
Walking is not only a necessary activity in order to perform many of life’s daily tasks, but it can also be a healthful and beneficial recreational activity.  Maintaining mobility is essential both for our productivity and for our emotional and physical health.  Knee pain can severely interfere with this activity.  Since the knees support our body weight continually, pain in the knee should not be ignored.  If you are experiencing pain, do not let this limit your mobility.  Rather take proactive steps to remedy the pain and improve your continued mobility.  When necessary seek assistance from a physical therapist who will help reduce the pain and return your ability to move as you desire. 

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.  Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness.  I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.  ~Soren Kierkegaard (Source: QuoteGarden.com)