I've had this done twice (ten years apart) and it was successful both times. My pain only came from biking, not running. I'm not sure but I feel like plicas are more of a cycling overuse injury.

It doesn't hurt to get a second opinion. Medial can also be medial meniscus I believe.

I've had medial knee/vmo pain that at one point a doc thought might be plica. It eventually went away with quad muscle relearning and strengthening.

My pain was kind of vague, hurt when cycling, and some when running and was accompanied by snapping(and still is a little). It took two docs and three PTs until I finally got on the right track, so before going under the knife, it may be worth another opinion.

I had the surgery back in '02. The surgeon told me once the plica gets inflamed and hard, it's very difficult to correct without surgery. His analogy was the plica is the appendix of the knee.
Took some time to get back to the level of fitness I was prior to the surgery. But I was like you, I was out for a few months before they diagnosed the problem. It's a simple scope procedure and you'll be back at it soon after.

Yeah its definitely been inflamed and is now hardened i guess. In physical therapy when i bridge my hamstrings cramp up, like my glutes arent firing. So ive been deadlifting and doing some basic step squats, when i stretch my quad though, theres a super serious pain like the plica band is slicing into my knee. I see my surgeon tuesday, i will tell him this and see what he thinks. I'm worried to get the surgery and it be like treating a symptom not the cause. thoughts are welcomed!

well i just got home from surgery. knee was pristine besides some roughness in trochlear groove, huge plica taken out. doc says weight bear as necessary start pt on monday? i think its kind of strange to wait that long. anybody wanna chime in on there rehab tips?

You shouldn't have had surgery, sounds like. Find a good physical therapist.

I saw 5 different physical therapist over a year. Knee started swelling and was painful to pedal my bike over 5 minutes. Hopefully this helps or im screwed. I did watch the surgery(spinal anest) and it was a pretty big stiff plica.

I had my plica removed on a Friday and started PT on the following Monday, though the first day of PT was really just stretching and not really much else. After you're able to start putting weight on it, starting the strengthening part of PT makes sense, but that took a few more days for me.

I was able to get on the trainer within a week and felt like that helped speed the healing process.

Hopefully the plica removal will take care of your knee issues. Unfortunately for me, it didn't do anything and I'm still struggling with my stupid knee injury (over a year now, and seven months since surgery).

Wow thats not great results. Did you get a video or pictures from your surgery that showed a hardened stiff plica? Can you run or bike? I couldnt do either. The surgeon gave me a shot of lidocane into the plica as a diagnostic and it releived the pain so im confident this will help Im hoping to start pt monday knee is still pretty swollen a cant weight bear either. Just keep at the rehab these injuries suck and can take a while to fully recover from.

I have pictures -- they don't actually tell ME anything. But I'm working with a new doctor and he just looked at them last week and said basically what my previous doctor said (no meniscus tear, some rougness that was cleaned up, and the plica was there and is now gone). Honestly, I went in knowing that it was basically exploratory surgery and that there was a chance he wasn't going to find anything. He removed the plica hoping it would help....it didn't.

Prior to surgery, we had taken x-rays, had an MRI, did physical therapy, tried a cortisone shot, did more PT, did a bunch of ART, then scoped it and did Supartz injection while he was in there....did more PT, more ART....new doc took new x-rays, had me do more PT and ART, did a Gel-One shot, and will be getting a new MRI tomorrow. I suspect it will continue to be an undiagnosed injury and all treatment will be "stabs in the dark" (next on the list is PRP, but no one is optimistic given that we can't pinpoint the cause).

I can ride....I can physically run, but not without pain. I don't have pain on the bike, but have taken some time off (almost a month now) to see if it helped with recovery; it actually feels worse, and my doctor is suggesting I start riding again. Annoying, but at least I like swimming and biking!

Hi Run2Run,

Was your surgery successful? I am considering going this route after an entire unsuccessful year of on/off PT and rest cycles. I am a competitive cyclist and after getting a second opinion on my knees, I was diagnosed with plica syndrome. That doctor said it was a simple arthroscopic procedure with a fast recovery. I am wondering if yours was successful and the timeline of your recovery (e.g. back to cycling in how many weeks, running in how many weeks, and at what point you felt 100%).

Any advice would be much appreciated. Currently have not really been doing much besides hip/glute exercises, elliptical, swimming, some spin bike for the last couple months (was playing tennis but got some SI joint problems from that so stopped for the last month).

Thank you.

How long was your recovery from plica surgery? I had mine done 2 days ago and knee feels sore and swollen at the moment. How long did it take you to get back to spinning and then riding properly again?

I had plica in both knee and had surgery for both. Both went well but the first one definitely took me longer to recover and was a little bit more painful in the recovery process. But still.. 2 weeks after surgery I was swimming, on the bike a few days later and 4 weeks or so running. Can definitely recommend the surgery