Medial Meniscus Surgery Question

had the surgery wrote:

please take care of yourself. conservative is not a bad word (at least in recovery!).

i had successful surgery but feel a bit more fragile these days. i blame that on getting older, i'm 59 and had the surgery at 52.

Totally agree. I actually felt like running about a week sooner than I did, but didn't want to take any chances.

I am more careful now, but more just due to age and letting myself get this out of shape.

Zat0pek wrote:

I was walking without a limp after about a week or ten days. I was hiking a 15% grade on my treadmill after two weeks, jogged easily after three weeks, and ran four miles pain free after four weeks. It's been about six weeks now, and I lift, jump rope, run, stretch, do whatever I want.

Slow down Zats. You're asking for trouble. Once the do your knee a 2nd or 3rd time it will be swiss cheese and then you'll be completely f***ed.

I also had the surgery at 52 and it was the beginning of the end..

Somehow, the arthritis set in..cracks, pops, stiffness and pain.

My thigh even gets numb if I lay on my back at night..

And the glucosamine and chondroitin was a tremendous waste of money..did nothing.

lohalloran wrote:

If you can, get into PT prior to the surgery to try and keep your quads and other supporting muscles strong. The stronger they are going in, the easier it will be to rehab the knee afterwards.

Definitely. I had a few weeks notice of mine, and the surgeon told me to keep hitting the gym harder than ever - just with no-load exercises. My last workout was the morning of the surgery.

I also followed an unusual protocol - this was in Japan. They made me stay mostly in bed for 3-4 days afterwards, but still had me doing static quad exercises next day, and doing more as soon as the swelling was down a bit. I then progress to knee extension and flexion and a bike. Aggressive rehab but trying to stay away from anything load-bearing. Worked great...

malmo wrote:Slow down Zats. You're asking for trouble. Once the do your knee a 2nd or 3rd time it will be swiss cheese and then you'll be completely f***ed.

UPDATE: Knee is so good that I forget I had the surgery until I see the three little scars on my knee. Running is 100% normal. No changes whatsoever.

Malmo, I grilled my orthopod at length at the post-surgical follow-up. He said I was lucky because after the repair, I still have full coverage of the cartilage; no exposed bone at all. He assured me repeatedly that I should have no problems, and I don't.

I did a few things that were smart: I figured out pretty quickly what I had done, and I really babied it (got on crutches) until I could get to the doc. That kept it from tearing any worse than it did. I also had the surgery as soon as there was an open date.

I recently had a knee operation and have been told I can get back to running. I never had a knee problem before. This, though, is what the surgeon found...

The patella-femoral joint: grade 2 and 3 arthritis (4 being the worst)

Meniscus: small post horn tear and grade 3 arthritis

Everything else: normal

He smoothed off the tear and flushed away all debris. Whilst I was laid off (prior to and after the operation), I put quite a bit of weight on. Questions...

(A) In an effort to keep as much stress of my knee as possible, do I attempt to lose all my weight before I start running again, or should I just start training again but just make sure I'm also dieting?

(B) I'm told hill reps aren't good for an arthritic knee. Is there a knack of hill repping that takes pressure off the knee? Alternatively, are there any exercises I can do that replicates hill repping but doesn't involve the knee to the same extent?

(C) Any other advice about training/racing/coping with this problem, please feel free to let me know. Thanks.

I had this surgery plus Microfracture earlier this year. I always recommend getting a second opinion before agreeing to surgery. Go to a doctor with a proven track record of treating athletes. I learned that different doctors can have very different opinions on how to treat the same injury.

I had medial meniscus surgery at 50. The rehab was a bigger deal than I thought it would be. It took longer. I am 58 and running fairly well but never reached pre surgery times but age has to be factored in on that. He also told me in time my other knee would knee surgery. My other knee has been fine.

Most research says surgery is NOT needed. Surgeons ALWAYS see surgery as a solution. Try everything before surgery. Medial in more invasive than lateral meniscus surgery (which is very minor)

Convenient how well timed this thread popped back up. This study just came out.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1305189?query=featured_home&

This is an old thread but one of several that I used leading up to my meniscus repair surgery, so I thought I would share my experience for anyone else who is in the same boat.

I am 43 and had a tear in my medial meniscus. I was in constant pain for a month leading up to the surgery (I will add that I was in marathon shape leading up to that). My pain was mostly behind the knee (not behind the knee cap but on the back of my leg) and on the inside of my thigh just above the knee. My knee would occasionally lock up, and I had trouble sleeping, walking, and getting up from sitting. Getting surgery was a pretty simple decision considering the pain I was in, but I did try acupuncture and physical therapy first. As far as I know, there was no single even that caused the tear, but I had been running in shoes that didn't accommodate my custom orthotics very well for several weeks before the onset of the pain.

My surgeon was prepared to remove part of the meniscus if needed or stitch it back up if he could. He was also prepared to do microfracture or scrape the back of the kneecap to help with arthritis if he found it. I ended up having a repair instead of a removal. At my age, repairing the tissue is very unusual. I was lucky that the tear was in an area that was still receiving blood flow, but it's pretty unusual. My surgeon was excited about it. He said he hardly ever gets to do a repair for anyone over 18, so this seems pretty big. Being able to keep the tissue is much preferable to removing some of it, but many times removal is necessary. In all the discussions I have seen online about mensicus "repair," I think most of the time people have had a removal and don't make the distinction between repair and removal. The recovery from each one is very different.

If you have a repair and not a removal, your recovery will be longer and more difficult partly because the stitches will cause more pain than the cut and the stitches will take some time to actually let the tissue join back up. If you have a removal, my understanding is that you are just recovering from the invasiveness of the surgery but the meniscus tissue is basically good to go right away. With a repair, the meniscus takes time to be able to withstand impact. I ended up not having enough arthritis to justify procedures for it, which was also unexpected good news. I don't know how that might have affected the recovery.

I did not have a brace and was advised to bear weight as tolerable. I was also given leg lift and knee bend exercises to do on my own right away. I was on two crutches for about 4 days and one crutch for another three days. Anticipating a removal and a faster recovery, I was not really ready to have so many days of crutches and pain, so I took more time off work than I had been planning. I was up on a bike on a trainer in ten days and a bike on the road for my short commute in three weeks. I was cleared to get into a swimming pool in three weeks.

The physical therapy is all about strengthening glutes and hips and working on balance. It has made a big difference in the recovery. I had some muscle adhesion in the quad that massage and foam rolling really helped with. Walking long distances is a work in progress, but I am hoping to be cleared to walk/run at 8 weeks. At that point the theory is that the meniscus tissue has healed back up. The bigger obstacle to overcome is the body's natural reaction to knee surgery, which is to switch off some quad muscles to protect the weak knee.

I hope this helps someone who is facing something similar.