I had surgery last Friday to repair a major lateral and medial meniscus tear and I also had laser repair treatment on the underside of my patella bone. The tears were believed as a result of a bike crash I had last year while racing, where it was believed that I had ‘only’ fractured my L1 vertebrae clean in half. However upon later discussion it also appeared that I had possibly damaged one of the meniscus in the accident too and then as a result due to a change in my gait it had resulted it further damage on the other side of my left knee.
As I said I had the op last Friday and so far the swelling has gone down super quickly and I am able to put weight on it even through I was told not to weight bear. I had compression bandages on for the first 24 hours and then they were removed there were 3 stitches which were covered with small dressings that I can shower with.
The operation was no problems about an 45mins) and I didn’t know anything about it - slept like baby. I did however have stay in over night afterwards due to there being more damage than they expected as it didn’t show up on the MRI. I have been prescribed anti-inflams, antibiotics and anti blood clotting drugs. As from today (4 days after op) I am starting with some very easy resistance band work and I’ll be using my Compex machine in order to stop atrophy. I have an appointment this coming Monday to have the stitches removed and then I hope to get the green light to enter the pool for some running and swimming (with a pull buoy).
Obviously it is too early to say whether it has fully worked yet, but the one thing that has been very clear is that, this wasn’t going to heal on its own (meniscus’ have a notoriously bad blood supply) and surgery for me was the only option. I had been dealing with this injury since last September and I had not realised how bad the pain was every moment of the day, until Saturday morning, the morning after the surgery when I woke to no pain at all and since I am pleased to report the same.
Hopefully I will be running again and being a Star Wars geek (sorry) I’m aiming at the Singapore SW easy effort 4.5km fun run in early May with my wife. After that who knows, but it’ll be just be great to run again, as I really thought my days of lacing up my runners and heading out door were over.
Finger crossed and thank you so far to my doctor who helped me.
I hope you get sorted soon.
Ed