Meniscus tear: Over 50 runners

Yep, had a very bad medial meniscus tear diagnosed via MRI about 2 years ago. Every step would hurt and I could barely bend my left knee.

It wasn't clicking or buckling but the scan showed a lot of damage. Paid to see a surgeon who was VERY keen to operate. Didn't trust the guy and didn't have the money so I left it. Eventually saw another public surgeon who advised against surgery unless I had trouble walking. He said I'd know myself if I needed it and that it wasn't always successful.

Zero pain now, I don't know how. It just settled down. I'm 33 FWIW. Good luck.

Virgil Kane wrote:

Yep, had a very bad medial meniscus tear diagnosed via MRI about 2 years ago. Every step would hurt and I could barely bend my left knee.

It wasn't clicking or buckling but the scan showed a lot of damage. Paid to see a surgeon who was VERY keen to operate. Didn't trust the guy and didn't have the money so I left it. Eventually saw another public surgeon who advised against surgery unless I had trouble walking. He said I'd know myself if I needed it and that it wasn't always successful.

Zero pain now, I don't know how. It just settled down. I'm 33 FWIW. Good luck.

Thanks so much for the response, I assume you are running now?

Absolutely yeah. ~60mpw with 3 workouts.

I kept a diary as to how much it hurt each day and what rehab I was doing and basically nothing helped. It just kind of settled down by itself. Very frustrating 18 months but it doesn't bother me in the slightest now. Hopefully that's the case with yours too. I've heard good and bad tales about the op so I'd advise caution.

I'm 53 and had a meniscus tear and it was cleaned out when I was 28.

It's your body and your life. Know that what you have will never "heal". You probably have loose bodies floating around in there that will continue to do damage unless they are cleaned out. You may get a decent amount of time where it feels OK but at what could be a large cost later

The procedure is simple and you walk out the hospital. I had it done when it was still new compared to what they do now and I have never looked back and never had one problem. I haven't run under a thousand miles a year since my late 30's and was much higher for a 5 year stretch.

If you feel strongly about not doing anything, again,it's your body so go with what you want. Just know that it's a roll of the dice.

Best of luck.

RobertELee wrote:

Virgil Kane wrote:

Yep, had a very bad medial meniscus tear diagnosed via MRI about 2 years ago. Every step would hurt and I could barely bend my left knee.

It wasn't clicking or buckling but the scan showed a lot of damage. Paid to see a surgeon who was VERY keen to operate. Didn't trust the guy and didn't have the money so I left it. Eventually saw another public surgeon who advised against surgery unless I had trouble walking. He said I'd know myself if I needed it and that it wasn't always successful.

Zero pain now, I don't know how. It just settled down. I'm 33 FWIW. Good luck.

Thanks so much for the response, I assume you are running now?

There is almost zero correlation between the body at 33 and the body at 50 plus.

That's a lot of runners with torn knees.

I'm 57 and have been competing for 40+ years. I'm having meniscus surgery tomorrow to remove part which has torn.

I've been on and off with it for 12 months - sometimes it would feel like it was going away, and then come back to be painful when driving, walking, trying to sleep, etc.

As someone else said, it can do damage elsewhere, primarily to cartilage. I think whether it can heal or not is dependent on where it is, the outer edges get more blood supply and have more of a shot at healing. Also whether there is anything floating about.

At 52 years of age, I developed a torn medial meniscus. Tried rest, tried PT, tried everything and nothing worked. Finally opted for surgery. Was using elliptical within five days and running in a month. Never looked back. Like it never happened. Back up to running 70 miles a week within a few months. Have the surgery. It's like clipping a hangnail.