Hello
Having meniscus and micro fracture arthro surgery on Aug 19.
Anyone else have the same or similar surgery?
Can you tell me what to expect as far as the following:
How long for recovery
How is your range of motion
Can your knee bear full weight with IM training
Thank you
I did, in January. I was in very little pain right off the bat. Weight bearing immediatly, no crutches. Physio a few days later for range of motion exercises and some gentle cycling (stationary) for about 2 weeks. I was back to running within 6 weeks.
Good luck!
Anyone else have the same or similar surgery? Yes.
Can you tell me what to expect as far as the following:
How long for recovery–Depends on what they do and where. Patellar is usually weight bearing right away (or shortly thereafter), as is a partial menisectomy. For a meniscus repair or for MFX in a WB area, you will be on crutches a lot longer. IIRC, I was on crutches for 8+ weeks with my MFX (lateral femoral condyle). It was 12+ months before I was running again.
How is your range of motion–I am missing quite a few degrees on my bad leg. But I’ve had a bunch of surgeries on it, so not suprising.
Can your knee bear full weight with IM training–not sure what you mean? Can you return to Ironman training eventually? Yes. No. Maybe. Depends on a lot of factors. Some people do, some don’t. I never did IMs, so that wasn’t an issue for me. After my mfx, specifically, I gave up 7 dpw running and moved to multisport. That was my main concession.
Flip me a pm and we can talk off line about MFX.
Graham
Are you having a meniscectomy (where they cut off the protruding bit of meniscus) or a meniscus repair?
The meniscectomy has a short recover time, like 4 weeks max. The meniscus repair takes much longer, like 6-8 months at times.
PM sent.
Thank you
He will be shaving off the protruding meniscus as well as the micro fracture procedure.
SMO, you must not have had a microfracture if immediate weight bearing. You likely had just a partial meniscectomy.
Standard post-op protocol for microfracture is 6-8 weeks on crutches but immediate motion in either a stationary bike/trainer (lowest resistance) or CPM (continuous passive motion machine) or both as much as possible in the early recovery phase. Recovery to running takes 9-12 months. If you run earlier, you can disrupt the healing of the microfracture. Many athletes have returned too early after a microfracture and fail as a result of that. Unfortunately, it really is a long healing process. Returning to running really depends on a multitude of factors and most importantly the overall health of the remaining cartilage of your knee. That is something you really have to discuss with your doctor and there are different severity of damage that could require a microfracture. One persons microfracture could be very small with pristine surrounding cartilage and would expect full recovery. Another could be a very large lesion with some cartilage wear in other parts of knee (in which case a microfracture probably shouldn’t be performed in the first place) and would not expect to get this person back to much running.
Microfracture also is best in young (i.e. <35 years old). In older people, the cartilage wear is generally more diffuse and not a great candidate of microfracture (exceptions exist of course). I trained under the doctor who invented the procedure (Dr Richard Steadman) so know it extremely well.
Good luck
This ^^^^^^
.
I’m sure you are quite right - didn’t read correctly. My bad.
IronDoc’s response was my experience. I was non load bearing for 6 weeks and then did not attempt to run for 7 months, cycling pretty much after getting off crutches. Doctor’s suggestion was to take at least that amount of time and then only really short. Wasn’t until a full year that I ran 10k. For me it was not about racing this year or next but being able to race 10 or 15 years from now.
Is my knee perfect no and I have less range of motion on that knee but I am racing again and the speed is slowly coming back.
Good luck with your surgery.
You will be on crutches for a while, wearing a technical shirt will help you not get chafing under your arms from the crutches!
My entire rehab is covered here getting back to Kona.
Alcatraz, as per our discussion today, read IronDoc’s text above carefully … this is exactly what I understand MFX to be and why I’m going with Denovo as an alternative. Good luck.
I did a blog on his 3/07/09 which may be of assistance, Microfracture and the triathlete. Be advised that each doc modifies his/her post op protocol based on what’s worked in the past, your specific findings at surgery, etc. So while we posters mean well, you experience will be tailored to you. Good luck.
John
Hello fellow injured and recovering friends,
Been doing a lot of research, reading a lot of blogs and discussing with local athletes that have had this procedure.
I am leaning towards having the microfracture surgery as when my doctor reviewed my scans he semed to think I may be down for about a month to six weeks with swimming a possibility after two weeks.
It is very ironic that my surgery is August 19 at 8:45 am and I asked my doctor to hopefully be done by 11:00 am and if it would be possible for me to use his computer to register for IMMT 2014 at noon that day.
Sometimes it pays to set goals when the future seems uncertain.
Thank you all for your advice and support.
See you at the finish line.
I am 13 months post op from microfracture surgery. I believe I had the procedure done on the lateral femoral condyle and was only on crutches for a day (surrounding cartilage was very clean) . I was on a stationary bike/swimming within a week and back to running within 4-5 weeks. My only limitations were no cutting/jumping type activities for 9-12 months, which I stayed away from completely. I did a lot of leg strength training in the months following and at this point I’m pain/injury free. I finished my first tri (oly distance) exactly a year post op. I have one more olympic this year and Raleigh 70.3 2014. Good luck, and hopefully you have the same experience I had.
I hope this eases your mind. The doctor swore I would be running 4-6 weeks out, and that was not the case on any message board I came across.
John,
Here is my pre-surgical tour of my kneee narrated by my doctor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KeIFtzGgYM
Thank you for your advice
Stephen
Graham,
Here is my pre-surgical tour of my knee narrated by my doctor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KeIFtzGgYM
Thank you for your advice
Stephen
Graham,
Here is a video of the area post surgery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s40kzzVi8ts
Thanks for the call.
Stephen
Keep me in the loop with your surgical procedure.
Good luck with your recovery. Just curious on general cost of this procedure and does health insurance cover it ?