Knee surgery - meniscal tear

I have a mri tomorrow. Doctor thinks I have a torn myeniscus sp? Anyhow may have to have aurgery to repair it if that is in fact what has happened. Anyone been through that here? Not too worried about it but more curious about recovery time .

We have good insurance through work thank goodness.

Mike

Recovery time isn't too bad for that, Mike. Should heal up pretty quickly with proper PT. Best of luck to you! ;)

Dad had that. He’s 64. Short surgery. Quick recovery. He was walking in less than 2 weeks. Still not perfect, but better than before the surgery. As with my plantar fasciitis, you don’t feel up quite the same, but its a good improvement. Mine was a 2 month recovery for returning to work (actually, a 7 month recovery in all), but mine was (and is) a terrible case. That is relatively less of a big deal.

Tore mine some time earlier this year. Doc here used to be a sports injury specialist. He pretty much said surgery was a waste of time, just a way to collect money.

He siad it would improve on it’s own but my knee would never be 100%, surgery would not make a difference to recovery.

He was right. I had pain killers for a few weeks just so I could sleep, it was much worse in bed at night. The pain has subsided pretty much, but I have had to change my sleeping posture too, which has helped a huge amount.

I don’t think the surgery is very severe or the recovery time long. But it cannot repair the damage. They only remove any cartilage that is loose.

Good luck with it.

Not when it’s completely torn. The pain won’t subside and it won’t heal. A partial tear will heal some, but a complete tear has to be fixed, like a broken bone. Dad’s not perfect, but going without the surgery may prolong the pain. Dad has a super resistance to pain, but even he gave in from it. I’d get a couple of opinions.

I had a tear that after a year seemed to actually be getting better, but the doc assurred me that the surgery would fix it like a finger snap. He would tell his own brother to have to surgery he said. Do it every day, he says.

So totally against my better judgement, following a blow-out that made walking tough for a couple days, I had the surgery. Worst mistake I ever made.

Well, I’m 6 weeks into recovery and the pain is FAR worse than it was before “the repair.” Doc keeps telling me I’m a “slow healer.” Yeah, right. Plus my knee keeps like slipping backwards and the pain when that happens is like an ice pick in my knee.

I wish I never had the surgery. With the tear, I could walk most days 4 miles with minimal or no pain. Ladders and stairs were a problem, so I was careful on them. Now I can barely walk a mile. Just doing the weekly shopping is a painful chore. I can honestly say that right now my active life is pretty much at a standstill.

And the doc I had was a big-deal foo-foo surgeon with THOUSANDS of meniscal surgeries under his belt. I don’t know if he botched mine or what.

My advice, if you can walk at all, wait a year before doing anything. Or six months at least. I know that seems like a long time, but I just don’t see my knee getting back to even 25% of what it was even with the injury, pre-surgery.

Did I say the surgery was the worst mistake I ever made?

And it’s not just walking. The thing wakes me up in the middle of the night with horrible pain, and I am no wimp. I’m sitting here getting what feels like painful electric shocks at the surgery site.

But regardless of my outcome, DO NOT FORGET (as someone here said), they don’t “fix” anything. They remove part of your meniscus. You’ll never get it back. It’s gone. Now you have bone against bone, which WILL lead to arthritis somewhere down the line, probably in a couple years. Read about it online and ask your doc about the arthritis. Mine really glossed that part over. Many online discussions of the surgery at various clinicshopsitals do NOT gloss over the arthritis risk.

Good luck. Sorry to be a downer about it. Hope you have better luck.

I hope everything turns out well. Good luck!

Sorry to hear this millerman. I'll be hoping for a speedy recovery and a painless post-op :-)

Best of wishes and fingers crossed :-)

Mine started out like a hot sharp pain now and then and then its was always now and my doc thought I strained my MCL. So a brace and ice and motrin and it seemed to get better. (april) Then it started hurting again, (august) but this time it felt like someone was prying on my knee joint with a screwdriver and twisting, it swelled a little. Now its achey but i can walk okay but a couple times a day it will catch and go pop crunch and it brings me down onto my other knee. Feels like me knee joint is being ground up and spit out the backside of the knee.

Its hard to explain to my doc that sometimes it doesn’t hurt too bad but sometimes it hurts a hole @#^%$ lot!

I understand pain enough (5 kidney stones in the last 10 or so years) -

So i got my MRi done and we will see what they find.

Had to get my eyes xrayed first to check for metal, then the MRI machine was having a hard to time. The ladies running it had to restart it 2x and then finally a full power down re-boot. added about an hour and a half to my visit. They were very apologetic and I understand it was not their fault

Its great hearing first hand accounts from real honest people.

Doc says its torn and needs surgery to repair. Meeting with Orthopedic guy on the 13th. Fun fun

I have had a torn meniscus in my left knee for over a year now. It hurts sometimes but other times with its sharp sudden feel will close to bring me down. My orthopedist says hold out till I absolutely need it done, but unlike my hip replacement that I was able to hold off for years this when it comes on collapses me which is dangerous. I may put some time aside this winter to do it as it can be done arthroscopically (sp).

Be well let us know what happens.
We may need a BLF University Hospital soon.

Hey, Mike, hope all this turns out well for ya.

My knee seems so small in significance compared to the east coast right now. I appreciate eveyones concern and input. I have a couple issues in the knee

1. A bucket handle tear on the medial meniscus leading to the interior edge - not fixable most likely will be removed
2. A tear of the outer edge of the Medial Meniscus - fixable I think
3. A contusion of the tibia plateau - bone bruise - gets better no biggie
4. A cyst or ganglion growth somewhere in the knee. - will be removed

So surgery will most likely behappening. I see the orthopedic specialists guy on the 13th and go from there.

The above what happens are my guess’s from reading around on the internet.

In the mean time been playing with a few lights. Stuck an xr-e in my kids old dorcy metal gear. Much brighter for him now. and trying to decide what to put into my mag 1c shorty x 18650 . haven’t decided on driver/emitter

or maybe emitter an a current limiting resistor

Thanks everyone

I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV but “been there/done that”

@Ubehebe from “Well, I’m 6 weeks into recovery and the pain is FAR worse than it was before “the repair.” Doc keeps telling me I’m a “slow healer.” Yeah, right. Plus my knee keeps like slipping backwards and the pain when that happens is like an ice pick in my knee.“

Your description of “slipping backwards” is typically an indication of a ligament tear/stretching within the joint (PCL)… doc should’ve(?) taken care of that when he was in there. The resulting instability is causing further “abrasion”/pressure on that meniscus “repair”. Sadly recommend a different doctor and MRI - try to stay away from one of those “open” units that so many ortho’s now have right in their office: smaller magnets/power and not as diagnostically resolving, just making a bunch of money from them. You need a big machine and the tiny tube.

@millerman from “Mine started out like a hot sharp pain now and then and then its was always now and my doc thought I strained my MCL.

That was because a tear of the MCL/”medial” and a tear of the medial meniscus often mimic one another by radiating pain in a similar pattern, even responding similarly to external finger pressure in the initial examination. The fact that it got worse meant that it was meniscus related as confirmed by the MRI.

“Repairs” on these things as another member implied is actually removal/smoothing of the junk from the damage as there’s no way to sew-up those tears again (unlike ligaments). I hope the doc is conservative (think of de-doming an LED): you can always go back and take off more, but once it’s gone it’s gone.

Wishing the best to both of you and good luck.

Nothing ever heals.

Thanks,

yeah the otrho guy I saw about surgery pointed his finger at my knee and said does it hurt right here ? and I told him that was the exact spot it hurt back in April the first time I went to the Doc. but I had no injury or event that happened to cause such an injury and I think it baffled my doc a little ( he is a sports med guy as well as my GP) So the MRI tech thought there was 2 tears and actual there is only 1 good size one and a piece floating around according again to the ortho guy. So he said back in the day it was just a total menisectomy and now they try and take little as possible yet enough to resolve the issue.

I’m eagerly awaiting surgery to get me back going 100% again. My boys love night walks around the neighborhood and I will still do it just slower and not as far. We all grab some sort of light be it headlamp / 2100 / the moded mags/ etc. and the kids get a hot cocoa to boot and we go look at xmas light. Its always a lot fo fun. The are 6 and 4 and the youngest girl is 10 months - we’ll bundle her up and take her in the stroller (spaceship) as the kids call it and go.

I read the ortho’s bio and he is into camping, kayaking, and electronics. I think I might bring him a torch at my first checkup …….maybe something pocketable aaa or aa any sugestions ?

Thanks for all the well wishes.

I have had both knees “scoped” for torn miniscus. Just a word of advice. The more physical therapy you do the better off you will be. It is literally no pain no gain. Both of my knees are shot from arthritus and job and because of my job the Dr. wants me to put off knee replacement till i am 60 (5 more years) If I was a horse they would have put me down long ago. When i had some surgery 3 years ago they told me to walk as much as i could to stop blood clots. The nurses asked why I walked so much. Since I was on morphine my knees did not hurt. First time in 10 years. My knees hurt all the time, just varies in degrees of pain. Lidocaine patches are your frienf. Good luck!

Mod him a Mag solitaire? Good luck on the knees.

A plus one on this!

@millerman: If you haven’t been in the gym regularly up to now doing various exercises for the quads/hams/glutes, you might want to just incorporate some isometrics for the quad (naturally, run this by your ortho beforehand): while seated (really good to do while watching tv or reading BLF) contract the quad by trying to “straighten” the knee joint as much as possible, 5-10 second “holds” whenever you think about it during the day. Work for maybe a total time of a minute or two for the first few days, then start increasing the contractions slowly up to 15-30 seconds, and in the few weeks of time between now and surgery you could easily get up to 10-15 minutes total contraction time/day. Should help a bunch post-op.

Surgery went good at home healing. Did above some thnk should
Thanks everyone