First-time poster, so apologies if this is in the wrong section.
Long story short, I was on a run about 2.5 months ago and got a quick jolt of pain on my inner leg/knee area during foot strike. I landed a bit wrong dodging a puddle and assumed I had pulled a muscle or just twisted something.
Fast forward a few weeks and while I was still keeping up my activities of biking and running with no problems or debilitating pain (aside from sporadic discomfort around the house in the morning), I decided to hit up the doctor to be safe as I'm planning on running the Chicago Marathon this year. MRI was done and it came back as a "focal tear of the periphery of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus." Doc said he would err on the side of surgery to ensure longevity for my knee.
I've already had surgery on my other knee and don't want to go under the knife if it's not completely necessary. As I said above, I had kept up with my running with no major issues until the MRI results (I've since stopped running just to give my knee some time off) and never had issues like inability to walk/squat/bear weight, etc. If I do feel any discomfort, it's typically a QUICK flash of pain and it's gone.
Has anyone avoided surgery and gone the path of PT/strength training to get over a meniscus tear? I'm not too proud to opt for surgery/miss the race, but considering I can still be active with no issue, I'm at a crossroads on how to proceed. Any insight is appreciated.