Hello,
Thank you for the post. I have a lot of confidence in the surgeon and his opinion. I can deal with the pain but the instability is too much. The surgeon explained where my root tear is and how this particular tear will affect the function of my knee and accelerate the onset of arthritis. Anyway, if people think they can benefit from me posting my recovery, I’ll do my best to pass it on.
Stay safe and healthy!!
I stumbled onto this blog. So helpful!
I also found this FB group (link above) that has been supportive for this root tear.
Your results are encouraging! I’m a BQ 48yo marathoner who is POM5 from root tear.
Thanks for the positive outlook!
Steph - I was just diagnosed with this same issue and am debating surgery versus PT. I am a very active 60 year old. How are you doing and what are your thoughts on the options? Thanks! Lisa
I know that there are lots of types of injuries to the meniscus and a number of treatments. But since getting an apples-to-apples comparison on this board might be difficult, can I just ask how many of you with medial meniscus injuries were ever able to go back to near-sprint running speed?
I'm just a (50-something year old) distance runner. I don't do any lateral sports, and I never all-out sprint. But I do really enjoy short, fairly fast intervals (~200m), and will be extremely disappointed if I can never do them again.
Any experience getting back to fairly high speed running ?
(FYI, for what it's worth, my recent MRI showed, "degenerative cleavage tear of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus extending from the meniscal root to the junction of the posterior horn and body”)
I had a full posterior meniscal root tear in my left knee in the fall of 2020 and underwent surgery almost exactly one year ago to repair it. I am now back up to running 60 mpw at the same speeds that I was running before the injury. For background, I am 40 years old and an Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon, so I was reasonably competitive before I had this injury. Now that a year has passed since the surgery, I believe I will be competitive again. However, it has been a long road. The recovery from this surgery is pretty terrible. There is no weight-bearing for the first 6-8 weeks (you better be good on crutches), and after that it is a very slow process of regaining strength and function in the affected leg. You'll need to do tons of PT, and you will have setbacks. Frankly, the process sucks. But if you are truly committed to regaining full function in your knee, then the surgery is the only way to go. You just have to be extremely patient and take the long view. Listen to your doctor, do the little stuff, and take care of your body, and you can run like you did before.
What I am reading here(correct me if I'm wrong) that if you have a meniscal root tear
the ONLY option is surgery.
No.
mid D guy wrote:
I experienced substantial swelling in a knee and was unable to walk. A MRI showed a clear lateral meniscal tear.
First surgeon stated I needed immediate surgery; I asked for a second and third advice and they told me that I could wait, try PE and have surgery later in case I did not improve.
Did rest and PE and after 3-4 months I was back into running. This was 18 months ago. Now I am running just fine and I would not know I have a torn meniscus. My advice would be to wait for surgery unless everything else failed.
Did you feel like you had gradual improvement but then stopped improving? How long were you off of running? When you first tried to run, did you have setbacks? Did you try and run before you felt nothing in your knee?
I've got an MRI next week but i think i have a mensicus tear. I am hoping to go the no surgery route. I've been off of running for 5 weeks but no problem biking. What i am reading is that people feel like they are better, start running, and it comes right back.
Thanks for any info.
This is accurate for tears in the meniscus itself, but the opposite is true for a meniscus root tear.