Lots of pain and swelling on the outside led my knee doc to believe I had a meniscus tear with a cyst. I had a race coming up so the first step we took was to drain the cyst so I could get through that. It worked and I was able to race withiut much discomfort.
After that I had an MRI to confirm the tear. But there isn't actually a tear, just the cyst. Which as I understand it is actually more complicated. It's a Hoffas fat pad ganglion cyst. And it sounds like it's not very common.
According to my doc I've got a couple of choices:
1. Have the cyst, or cysts as on MRI it looks like four, drained by a radiologist so we can make sure we get them. Issues here are that they will fill back up over time(how long I don't know) and that having the one drained before hurt like hell.
2. Remove the cyst(s). This would have been easy if there was a tear because they'd be in there already. But since there is no tear to go through with the camera they will have to come from the outside. Which means cutting throught the IT band.
I'm obviously going to choose option one for now and hope for the best.
But is option two really the only other course of action?
What I don't understand is why they're able to get to the cysts to drain them externally but have to cut through the IT band to remove them.
The surgery method is scary because of the potential for scar tissue and all sorts of other stuff. Plus the down time. And I already have a snapping IT band. Other than the cysts the knee looks pretty good.
Here's the MRI report:
After that I had an MRI to confirm the tear. But there isn't actually a tear, just the cyst. Which as I understand it is actually more complicated. It's a Hoffas fat pad ganglion cyst. And it sounds like it's not very common.
According to my doc I've got a couple of choices:
1. Have the cyst, or cysts as on MRI it looks like four, drained by a radiologist so we can make sure we get them. Issues here are that they will fill back up over time(how long I don't know) and that having the one drained before hurt like hell.
2. Remove the cyst(s). This would have been easy if there was a tear because they'd be in there already. But since there is no tear to go through with the camera they will have to come from the outside. Which means cutting throught the IT band.
I'm obviously going to choose option one for now and hope for the best.
But is option two really the only other course of action?
What I don't understand is why they're able to get to the cysts to drain them externally but have to cut through the IT band to remove them.
The surgery method is scary because of the potential for scar tissue and all sorts of other stuff. Plus the down time. And I already have a snapping IT band. Other than the cysts the knee looks pretty good.
Here's the MRI report:
