At my clinic, steam clears congested skin every time.

My uncle was a construction worker for 30 years and had bad knee pain. He tried the no impact stuff like swimming, but it didn't help much. What really worked for him was slowly adding light weight training, like leg raises with small weights. His doctor said the muscles needed to learn to handle some stress again. Now he can walk without pain after months of this. Sometimes you gotta challenge the area a bit, not just baby it.