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.