I tore the medial meniscus in my left knee on 11/15/03 and am having surgery on 12/17/03. Most likely the surgery will involve removing the tear; not the repair of the cartilage. I am interested in any information concerning experience with this type of injury: how the surgery went, rehab, time until training in BJJ and boxing again (or other combat sports), and stability/strength of the joint after resuming training.
Thanks in advance.
Chris
i had arthroscopic surgery for a meniscus tear back in july. i had 75% of the meniscus removed and was out of training (bjj) for just about 5 weeks. i was back to about 90% within that time. i was walking without cruthces the day after surgery, but it was not fun. stick with the PT and do as much stretching as you can stand. that seemed to work well for me.
good luck, hoipe you have a quick recovery.
Thanks for the responses.
Tomorrow is surgery at 9:15 AM. I had surgery to
repair a torn ACL and meniscus in the right knee in
2001. That rehab REALLY sucked. So I guess I
actually got lucky, in a way, with this injury.
I've talked to some other people about this kind of
procedure and your responses seem to be very
similar to what they said. I guess I figure to be
back in BJJ in about 3 months. Boxing earlier than
that.
Thanks again.
Chris
I have a torn meniscus in my left knee--(and a ruptured cyst in the
same leg which may or may not be related)
The doctor says in a few weeks if I'm not symptomatic I should
not rush into surgery--I may have had this tear for a while and the
cyst just brought it to our attention.
Question: Is anyone out there training with a torn meniscus and
doing ok? Apparently doctors aren't pushing this surgery as much
as they used to-
I tore the meniscus in my right knee back in April of this year. The first ortho I saw recommended I try PT first. The PT helped a little but I was unable to even lightly jog without a lot of pain and my knee was constantly popping and giving me problems. Frustrated, I went to another ortho last week who recommeded it be repaired. I'm having it repaired on January 20th and wish I would have had it repaired sooner.
"Question: Is anyone out there training with a torn meniscus and doing ok? Apparently doctors aren't pushing this surgery as much as they used to- "
while that is true if you have a big tear and it folds over your knee can "lock up" either with incredible discomfort that you can make it "unlock" or from what my doc told me emergency surgery.
mine locked up twice and i was able to get it straight again,it wasn't fun.
not trying to freak you out but keep an eye on it.
dstep is 100% correct. I had a torn meniscus for a while before I got the surgery and my defining symptom was that my knee would lock up and it sucked trying to get it unlocked. This happened to me for a long time because the first doctor I went to about it said that he did not see anything wrong with my knee on the M.R.I. My bjj training and progress was held back drastically because of that problem.
By "locking up" do you mean you wouldn't be able to move it at
all? Or do you mean you can't fully bend and/or extend it? That's
my problem-I can't fully extend it or fully bend it. It's been three
weeks and although it is easier to walk I still don't have full range
of motion.
Also my ortho told me today that my kind of tear would require a
partial removal of the meniscus--anyone had this done? If so, has
it affected your ability to train?
I mean that it would not fully bend or extend. I guess "catching" is a better term than "locking." I was able to "pop it back into place" by totally relaxing my knee and having someone else straighten it for me. At that point a loud click would happen and my knee would be fine except that it would be really sore. I was told this "catching" came from a piece of the meniscus tear getting caught in the knee joint.
I had a partial meniscus removal. It has not really affected my training yet, but since I've had two procedures on the same knee my doctor told me I would almost for sure have arthritis in that knee when I got older. I guess I just have to rely on glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, and gelatin to give me a little relief in that area when the time comes.
C.J.
I had it, but it was at the same time as an ACL repair.
So I cannot segregate the 2 issues well.
Calbert--what was the other procedure you had done on that
knee? Was it another meniscus issue? And how long after surgery
were you able to roll again? And when did you have the surgery?
Thanks-
NYCBUZZ, both of my procedures were for a torn meniscus. My story is kind of wierd. To make a long story short, my meniscus tear was misdiagnosed by one doctor, repaired by another doctor and then misdiagnosed as IT band syndrome when the symptoms returned, and then finally it was repaired by a third doctor whom I now trust completely with all of my orthopedic issues. The third doctor said that he did not know why my first procedure did not fully repair my meniscus, but that it may have been because of a certain laser technology that was used that is sometimes known to not cut out all of the tear or sometimes can cause other tears to occur.
I had my first surgery in the spring of 2000. My second and final surgery was done in the summer of 2002. After this last surgery, it took me about 3 weeks of rehab to be able to train, but I could not do everything. In terms of BJJ I could train escapes, sidebody, and play guard, but I was not able to be in mount or inside someone else's guard. It took about 6 weeks before I was comfortable doing all BJJ.
In terms of stand up, I could pretty much do most things after the first 3 weeks except for lateral movement to my right, throwing a left kick (I had to pivot on my right leg which was the injured one) and taking leg kicks to my right leg during sparing. It also took about 6 weeks to be able to do these other things. Despite being fully functional after 6 weeks, I have discovered that knee pads are a guy's best friend when rolling and during stand-up sparring. Even after you are able to train, your knee will be externally sensative to slapping and other impact shots for a while.
C.J.
i have a partial tear in my left meniscus...right now i am just taking advil and icing it...is it ok to ride the bike or could that make things worse??? what else could i be doing? i am seeing another doctor next week...i was kinda hoping rest, ice and anti-inflammatories would be enough...but i am getting major urges to start training again..at least my cardio or something
thanks for any suggestions!
pj
oh yeah...its also kinda swollen on top of my knee now so i can't squat down or bring my heel towards my bum very well...i don't know if thats related or not or if that will affect me riding the bike
thanks again for any suggestions! whoop!
pj