I am scheduled to have my knee scoped next week to repair a torn meniscus and am curious as to what I can expect in my recovery. I am trying to reasonably look into my racing schedule this year and want to know what I can “tentatively” plan for.
1 - How bad was your tear and in where was it located?
2 - How long did you wait to swim?
3 - Tell me about your biking progression? How long until you began biking? How many weeks until you felt “normal”?
4 - Tell me about your running progression? How long until you began running? How many weeks until you felt “normal”? Any limitations on distance post surgery?
5 - How long did you got to PT?
6 - Any other “hints” that you found worked or aided in your recovery?
1- Left knee medial tear was removed.
2- I haven’t been in the pool since surgery.
3- I was able to bike in 10 days. It took 8 weeks to feel normal.
4- Running is a different story. Started walking after 2 weeks and progressed to 4 mile walks. Then I tried short runs with the walking and monitored for knee pain. When I had pain I would stop running and go back to the walking. I am currently up to a 3 mile run with a 1/2 mile walk before and after for warm-up and cool-down.
5- PT lasted 3 weeks.
6- Listen to you body and don’t over due it.
Tear in two places that was trimmed…and PVNS (pigmented vilo nodular synovitis sp?) removed…
bike at PT in 5 days…feeling “normal” but with lose of strength in about 4 weeks
Swimming was two weeks
My 4th week after surgery I logged 24 miles for he week. All done on soft trails…
PT was 4 weeks
I had sugery on a Friday and kept my leg at a 45 degree angle for 3 days. I believe it really helped get all the swelling down and I did my exercises like clock work.
I had tears in the middle and on the outside. Both were significant enough to justify surgery. I chose my surgeon carefully and found a guy that recognized and acknowledged that I wasn’t going to follow advice to stop doing ironmans. It helped at the outset for him to know my expectations and, I think, made him more interested in my case.
I really focused on keeping up with ice and elevation after the surgery and made a strong effort to keep the knee moving. I think bending my leg back and forth and doing bicycles in the air really helped move things along. I also did a lot of pool running for the first 12 weeks and did a lot of cycling on an exercise bike with almost no-resistance (couldn’t get little enough resistence on the fluid trainer). I took my running mileage up slowly and spent a lot of time on the softer surface of atreadmill.
Believe it or not, swimming took a while. The knee does some funny things when you kick that are really uncomfortable. Likewise, pushing off the wall is a bear.
I went to PT for about 8 weeks, but it was infrequent after the first two. They pretty much help you stretch and give you some exercises to do; all stuff you can do on your own.
My knees are a limiter on my running mileage, but they have been for a long time. They have not limited my cycling mileage.
For whatever it’s worth, I had a great season following my partial menisectemy and debridement.
Best of luck and hang in there.
Take it slow at getting back to running and overdo the non-weight bearing (boring as hell) work.
Do you know for sure if it is going to be a repair or just the torn part clipped? The rehab is longer with a repair, but you will see better long term results. You can not be very aggressive with a meniscus repair in the beginning and have to avoid excessive flexion for several weeks, but should make a full recovery by 3- 4 months. If a small part is just clipped, you will be back fast and if a larger part is clipped or removed - you will be back in a couple of weeks.
PT probably depends on your insurance. With a repair, PT in the beginning will be early ROM and early strengthen of the quads. You will be on crutches much longer than you like probably close to 4 weeks. If good bilateral strength, you can start jogging between 5 and 6 weeks. Rehab can become really aggressive at this stage. You maybe on the bike early for ROM, but you will not be allowed to bend you knee past 90 degrees. After 4 weeks, you should be able to bike harder on a stationary bike or maybe trainer.
If you are young and work hard, you should see great results.
Ice and do you rehab. The simple exercise in the beginning and the balance stuff you will do later help the most.
No repair. The doc believes the tear in pretty minor (I concur…I can run for about a mile w/o much pain…but increases to “stopping” pain after about 3 miles.) I have heard varying recovery times from 2-4 weeks to 3-6 months - which I guess is based on which surgery you have. I am still pretty young and don’t generally pile on the running miles (<1000 a year) but do have a fall marathon on my “to do” list. Insurance shouldn’t be a problem for PT.
When are you having surgery? What is you MD telling you? Is his/hers speciality knees?
I have never had the injury, but treated many post rehab meniscus injuries. If the MD just clips the end and you have no complications, you should be back 100% within one month. Athletic people usually get better faster. Just get full extension quick.
The only people that take 6 months are fat out of shape workman’s comp patients that do not want to get better and ever work again.
Yours sounds a little like mine. My ortho said that if I weren’t planning on competing he’d have counseled me against having it done. He clipped and cleaned a small section of the left medial meniscus and had me start with quad sets and light stretching that night. I stretched it quite a bit and started (paid) PT in week 2. I’m a trainer and spin instructor, and I skipped my spin class the day after surgery but did all the others (3 a week). Initially it was a chore to bend the knee enough to be able to let the pedals go around, but by the fourth day I was starting to move the seat lower and lower until I had it as low as it would go and was still able to pedal. After that I would do the warm up with the seat all the way down and then raise it up for the session. On top of that I did numerous stretches off and on ALL day.
The next thing I did was to go crazy on supplements. Some will pooh-pooh this, but I’ll just say that surgery was performed 9/29 (my 56th birthday) and I just ran 111 miles in December, my first 100+ month in quite a few years. I have no knee pain or even discomfort while running. On Sunday I did a ~15 mile hilly trail run and got lost, finishing down a fairly steep paved road that has left my quads decimated, but the knees are both A-1.
I started easy jogging in week 4, mostly on treadmills until week 7 when I was going far enough that it seemed like I should get outside. I was nervous about it and there were a couple of times when my knee bothered me after running, so I waited for it to feel good again before my next run. I also focused a lot on technique and cadence, quick turnover, short support time, starting the paw-back prior to ground contact. All of these things helped.
Like you, I sought advice here on the board, and I’ll PM you with some stuff I got from a guy named Bill from AZ who hasn’t posted to your thread yet, although he might. If any of this helps, I’m happy to have shared the knowledge.
Best of luck, please report back after the surgery. I am due to go in for similar op in March, at this point the Dr does not know if its a repair or cut.
Here’s some orthopedic surgeon advice and tips for recovery: 1. Use a ice water wrap such as Polar Pak around knee put on at surgery (dec swelling), 2. Strict elevation for 48 hrs (dec swelling). 3. Antiinflammatory Ibuprofen 800mg every 8hrs regularly (pain and swelling), 4. Aspirin 650mg once a day (antinflammatory but primarily to prevent DVT) 5. Work on motion as soon as can, 6. Start PT within a few days (motion) 7. Bottom line return to activities will be ‘as tolerated’ but will take 4-6 wks to run, but less for cycling and swimming 7. Ace Wrap on knee if swelling is a continued problem 8.Eat healthy and vitamins can’t hurt…hope this help, ask again if additonal questions…good news: generally athletes should recover much more quickly than probabaly most patients your doc have treated in gen. pop…
I had my left knee scoped on Dec 28 to clip a lateral meniscus tear. Today I walked a mile and road a trainer for 10 minutes to test the full range of motion of the knee. I was really encouraged by today. I still have some swelling on the knee, but plan on walking on the treadmill each day and spinning on the bike as well. I get my stitches out next Tuesday and will be back in the pool then and also next week plan on riding flat courses on the Computrainer. If the weather holds out this weekend I will get out and ride easy on the bike. I’m hoping I can start some easy running late next week. I’m signed up for Boston this year and still plan on being there so I’ll need to get back into my long runs by the end of January to be ready for Boston.
I tore my right one when I was 20 - just to the inside of the cap. I waited 18m for surgery and it took 18 months after that to get 100% mobility. Specifically it took that long to stretch the tendons and ligaments enough to allow me to kneel down properly. I can’t recall the specifics of how long after surgery I was running, but I think I had 90% mobility within 4 weeks, and I’d guess I could run on it without worrying after 8 weeks.
I tore the left one in my late 20s, same place. I waited 5 days for surgery. I was cycling within 5 or 6 days, but in a crazy bend-the-leg-out-to-the-side sort of way because I couldn’t get enough compression for the top of the pedal stroke. I think by 10-12 days I was cycling fairly normally. At 14 days I was skiing bumps (part of the reason I pushed the recovery a lot harder; I had a ski holiday lined up that I had no intention of cancelling).
Both were keyhole jobs.
Rockchalk’s items 1-6 are a definite to-do. I did all save for the aspirin with the second one. I only did 2 and 3 for the first one.
Bottom line - it will depend on you, the surgery (the amount they have to blow the knee up and the amount of poking around required), and the injury. The advice I had after both was the same - do as much as you think you can, but you’ll know very quickly if you’ve overdone it as the knee will swell like a balloon.
I had a torn meniscus, i had no surgery though, for me it would have been the last last resort. I tried a ton of things and eventually (around 2 months) it got better. Things i tried included accupuncture, massage, correcting a bad bike fit, new pedals (too much float was killing me), weight training, taking supplements, tests for muscle imbalance etc etc …
Do you know how the tear occured (and how to prevent going forward)? I think its typically overuse / biomechanical (wrong bike fit, shoes etc). If you have an idea then at least you can work on preventation etc when you get healthy again.
I had a medial tear to the meniscus in my right knee repaired surgically many years ago (16, to be exact… gosh, where does the time go). At the time I was a rabid nordic ski racer and soccer player and needed the knee back in form fast. My surgeon was a former Cat 1 racer so his advice was to get back on my bike within two weeks and spin like crazy, so I did. To answer your other questions:
2. Surgery in July, back in the pool in September.
3. I rode my bike everywhere at the time (pre-drivers license, small town); back to normal in ~2 months.
4. Started running again in August for skiing dry land training. This was the hard part… Didn’t feel normal for many, many weeks. The season was an “off” one but eventually things fell back into place. Limited to 5 miles at a time for the first 6 months, followed by RICE every time.
5. PT, 6 weeks.
I’ve had both done, with multiple tears, scar tissue and flaps involved. As some have stated, get moving quickly! I was on my trainer, painfully, the day after the second, and water ran after both starting 2 days post surgery. The water running will be the best thing you can possibly do, as I gained degrees of range of motion each time. My doc had me wait 2 weeks to run, but I did run on the 2 week date, and had runs up to 10 miles within a month. For me, the pain was there for a bout a year on each, but it was in a different area, and since the doc said there was no structural issue, I ran through it and have gone on to multiple Ironmans, and Hawaii… Just be very aggresive in moving it. I have a number of local friends whose doc was very conservative, and they had a very long recovery and lots of stiffeness for a long time, some not ever running again. Get moving, and realize you will know which pain is good, and which you should not push. It does hurt to get it better, but the pain is your ticket back. In a year you’ll forget you ever had it done. Good luck!
I tore mine in January 2000 while skiing. Had surgery in March 2000. Initially the doc thought I would be back on my skis a week after surgery. During surgery he found more extensive damage and repaired it. Post-op I was to be totally non weight bearing on that leg for 4 weeks. I complied. Then I had 4 weeks of PT. I was told not to run for at least 6 months which was no big deal as I was not a runner. I did start biking summer of 2000 was putting 150-200 miles weekly in. During my recovery period I was also dieting/losing weight - I lost 50 pounds. I had never been a runner, but when the fall of 2000 came I started running to maintain fitness when biking was no longer possible. Shortly thereafter I read about a local tri club in the newspaper and started tris the following spring.
My advice is follow the post-op directions. A few months of not running is not a big deal when proper healing/recovery is essential for the rest of your life. I have never had any problem with my knee since the surgery and I think my following a very cautious/conservative plan played a large role.