I’ve had pain in left outer knee for a few months, seemingly a lingering soccer injury, BUT after a 10k run the other night, I could barely walk…the PT I train with did a few things indicating high probability of tear (Positve McMurry? test and another one). I’m to see Ortho next week. I understand that Lateral Meniscus is vascular in nature, so more prone to non surgical repair.
Is this accurate, and if this is my case, what am I in for? Can I bike, swim? Is running a long way off?
If you have had a specific twisting injury, it is possible, but a number of “meniscus tears” on the lateral side turn out not to be, especially in the non “plant and twist” sport population. (If it dates back to soccer, that may change things.)
How repairable a meniscus is primarily depends on how and where it has torn, not really so much medial versus lateral. The outer portion of each meniscus is vascular, and the inside portion is not. I don’t really know what you mean by nonsurgical repair - maybe that means healing on it’s own. If you have symptoms dating back many months, and it is torn, it doesn’t tend to heal on it’s own. You probably need an MRI to sort this out.
Deke
I ran for 3 years on a torn medial meniscus and ACL. I never had any problems and my knee felt great (I did a 1/2 IM with no pain at all). I had ACL and meniscus surgery 8 months ago and I’m having problems with the meniscus. I’m having second thoughts on the meniscus repair but I’m glad that I had the ACL repaired. I think you have 3 options 1) don’t have it repaired (only if you’re not experiencing pain/discomfort) 2) have it repaired (6 month rehab at least and no guarantee it will not tear again) 3) Have the torn area removed (menisectomy (sp?)). It’s a tough call. There are long term implications with choice 1 and 3. Talk to a couple of orthopods.
You can bike and swim to your hearts content but you shouldn’t run if it hurts (that’s what my doctor tells me but I do it anyway).
Good Luck.
I’m curious why if you were completely asymptomatic you ended up having surgery (or for that matter why you had the diagnosis made). Usually we would only do ACL surgery for the symptom of instability, as there no evidence that repairing an ACL prevents further degenerative change to the knee - in fact there is some evidence that it slightly increases the risk (though this was with older techniques of fixing ACLs). Maybe the logic was the meniscus tear should be fixed and the ACL tear will not allow the meniscus to heal.
You have indetified the problem with meniscus repair - when it works, it’s a good thing for your knee, but there is a significant incidence of them not healing after repair, and then you end up going back for partial meniscectomy.
Deke
6 weeks ago, you still hadn’t unpacked your bike from Mrs. T’s. Now you’re back to training (hard) almost every day. I would assume that if you haven’t “done” something recently, you have just done too much too soon. CLASSIC reason for ITB. Either way, you should babysit my kids for a day to get a real workout before the moment of truth at your place…
Because I was tired of my knee popping out of place everytime I stepped off a ladder wrong or tried to go snow skiing, etc. Plus I wanted to get into more long course training and I didn’t think my knee would hold up to that kind of mileage.
I get it - you meant you never had any problems doing triathlon but day to day life was different. Sounds like a good reason to have the ACL done - it’s a good operation for that.
Deke
And you are much better at sitting them than I!!! I’ll let you know how the MRI goes.