Medial Meniscus tears?

[ray1970]

Anyone torn their medial meniscus?

Appears my wife did so I was wondering what to expect.

[ray1970]

Grr. Misspelled ?meniscus? in the title.

If someone fixes it today I?ll gladly owe you a cheeseburger tomorrow.

[BushMasterBoy]

Wiki says it is part of the leg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medial_meniscus

[Wulf202]

My brother has and my mom is going in for a scan to see if hers is after a fall down the stairs

[ray1970]

Thanks, BushMasterBoy. That probably explains my wife's difficulty walking.

[Shooter45]

Meniscus is like a padding in your knees. Fairly easy to tear it completely or partially. The surgeries mainly consist of fast surgeries through arthroscopic surgery. With the mild and fast surgery, usually a fast recovery if following the recovery plan and taking it easy.

[SAnd]

DO NOT delay getting it looked at. Walking on it will chew it up so it can't be repaired. I'm missing about 30% of my meniscus because I walked on it so all they could do is remove the shredded pieces.

[ray1970]

Thanks.

She's been to a doctor, had X-rays and an MRI and is scheduled to see a specialist on Tuesday.

She's been trying to walk on it some lately so I'll tell her to quit doing that.

[Hoser]

It was an easy fix on both my knees. Walking talking the same day. Not a lot of pain, but some pretty good discomfort. I am not a fan of pain meds, but I should have been.

[TEAMRICO]

I have a chipped one which causes my knee to lock from time to time. I just pop it and move out. Im
used to it by now. Dr. Told me that if I?m able to live with it it is not worth the surgery.

[Great-Kazoo]

Thanks.

She's been to a doctor, had X-rays and an MRI and is scheduled to see a specialist on Tuesday.

She's been trying to walk on it some lately so I'll tell her to quit doing that.

The more she's on her feet, the more damage done. She can try relaxing and do light duty for a little per day. OR not and regret not taking it down a notch when she should have

[Fentonite]

Make her take it easy. It can be a super simple fix, but certain types can be horrific. My wife avulsed the posterior horn of the medial meniscus, and was absolutely non-weight bearing for 6 weeks, limited for another 6. That’s the uncommon worst end of the spectrum, but it probably didn’t help that she kept walking on it. Had to go to Vail to get the right surgeon (who invented the repair) - most don’t do it. Good luck to your lady.

77559

[Ramsker]

No experience with medial . . . but I jacked up my lateral when I was really young. Went to kick a ball on wet grass and plant foot slipped . . . fell into a hurdler's stretch and my right knee locked up completely. Saw an ortho and he manipulated the knee to unlock and put a brace on it for a few weeks and tried to live with it. Would lock up every now and then through life, but i could manipulate it back out. Locked it up much later in martial arts and couldn't get it unlocked--so went in for surgery. Turns out that initial injury messed it up bad and they couldn't repair it. I've been without a lateral meniscus in my right knee since 2000.

Anyway . . . what happens next will depend on the extent of the injury and where it is. Some tears can be repaired or small sections where it's damaged can be removed when they scope the knee. More minor tears you can sometimes live with. Sometimes you won't have an issue. Sometimes there's pain or the knee can lock up. If it's minor and needs to be scoped, it's a few weeks of discomfort and then rehab and you see how it goes. The more severe, the more intrusive the surgery is and then recovery is longer and can (or sometimes doesn't) have more lasting effects.

Turns out my injury killed off the meniscus and when I locked it up for good, they removed the whole lateral meniscus. Hasn't really been much of a problem (outside of jogging pretty much being a no-go but I lift and do everything else), but later in life I'll probably pay for it with arthritis and maybe a replacement. My wife had a more minor tear about 10 years ago, got it scoped and was fine after a couple rough weeks.

Hopefully your wife's is pretty minor and they can either fix it (bucket handle tear) or just remove the damaged part if it's flopping around.

[OtterbatHellcat]

Ray, I hope your gal gets through this with the best possible outcome.

Can any of this stuff be related to a knee that locks up with very intense pain when sleeping in a bed? Gawd awful pain wakes me up in the middle of the night, can't move the knee until some time goes by, and 15 minutes later I could jog around the block. wtf? It never hurts during the day, only attacks when I'm sleeping.

[Ramsker]

Ray, I hope your gal gets through this with the best possible outcome.

Can any of this stuff be related to a knee that locks up with very intense pain when sleeping in a bed? Gawd awful pain wakes me up in the middle of the night, can't move the knee until some time goes by, and 15 minutes later I could jog around the block. wtf? It never hurts during the day, only attacks when I'm sleeping.

Hard to say. When you have a messed up meniscus, it can lock the knee based on just positioning of the leg and/or where pressure comes from. It feels kind of like a cramp coming on from what I remember and then it just plain locks and doesn't feel good at all, especially if you try to move it even a little. If you have a damaged meniscus and move around a lot in your sleep or put your leg/knee if a particular position then you could lock it up. In my case, masaging around it and working the knee/leg around would usually get it to unlock (until that time where I couldn't get it unlocked).

[rondog]

I have a Harley FLT Tour-Glide, probably the tallest bike Harley ever made. Years ago I had to stop in a spot where I couldn't reach the ground, bike started over, and when I stopped it with my left leg and hollered for the wife to bail, it was too far over to hold. So I had to drop it while the ol' lady was airborne. Wrenched the living shit out of my left knee.

Then in 2004, I stepped off a curb without looking, not knowing it was several inches taller than normal curbs. Down the fuck I went, wrenched it even worse that time. And we flew out to DisneyWorld the next day. Fuck me.

So yeah, know all about the damaged meniscus thing. It hurts. Surgery to clean it up wasn't all that bad, and it seems to have worked well.

[Ramsker]

If anyone here is going to have knee surgery or knows of someone who is . . . do whatever you can to arrange with your surgeon to get a Cryo Cuff system (or similar kind of thing) for the recovery. Or buy one for yourself if they won't get you one. It's worth every cent out of your pocket. They make them for more than just knees, but it's a bladder that wraps around your knee and there's a tube that connects it to a cooler. You fill the cooler with ice water and you raise it up above the level of the knee and gravity fills the bladder--so you get the cooling and some compression. When the bladder isn't cold anymore, you set the cooler on the floor below knee level and the water drains back into the ice in the cooler and re-cools it again. Rinse, repeat. Beats the ever-loving crap out of ice packs.

My neighbor had one and loaned it to me when he heard I was having my knee scoped. And when my wife had to get hers done, we borrowed it again.

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/537a5560-1365-49aa-b154-21857177b98f_1.fece57a06ea7679bf14b892f0cabbf7e.jp eg?odnHeight=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF

[ray1970]

We have something similar somewhere around here. I think our has a pump that circulates the cold water. The bladder piece might be shoulder specific though. I'll have to look. Maybe we can get just the bladder for her knee.

[Delfuego]

I have had to get my knee rebuilt a couples times, meniscus tears are very painful. The arthroscope procedure is pretty good nowadays. It's almost as if the remove a piece of glass out of the knee. You will usually start feeling better right away. Waiting doesn't help, other than the swelling goes down. Make sure to go to a "Sports Medicine" surgeon.

[Trigger Time 23]

I tore the medial portion of the meniscus in my right knee in October. I did it in the gym squatting. Went and saw a doctor and explained I had an elk hunting trip the next week. He told me to go if I could deal with the discomfort (he also hunted). We got our elk and I had surgery the next week. I was 95% in about 10 weeks and I am now back to 100% or better. I am in my 40's and work out 5-6 days a week. I sometime have a little tightness after certain hard workouts, or runs but other than that it was a piece of cake. They gave me an ass ton of pain killers. I took 1 the night I tore it and 1 or 2 after surgery. Not a big deal.

[izzy]

I've had three surgeries for this. Like others are saying it's not a huge deal if you listen to what the doctor says. I'd recommend being careful after any surgery. I felt pretty good right after the surgeries and it's very tempting to just go about as usual but ended up making things worse after one of mine. Going through the PT to make everything strong again is an important step.

[Martinjmpr]

I've torn it in both knees. First time in 1980 in basic training (left knee) and the right in 2015. Total of 4 surgeries (3 left knee, 1 right.)

Arthroscopic repairs are pretty easy to recover from. Unfortunately mine didn't work and they had to go back and take the whole meniscus out. This was in 1980, I don't know if the technology has changed since then.

I can walk OK but I have knee pain pretty much on and off and probably will for the rest of my life.

As to why? My avatar is a clue. ;)

ETA: One of those silly memes on Facebook said it best: "I Have Vet Bod. It's like Dad Bod but with more knee pain." :D

[ray1970]

Thanks everyone.

Looks like my wife will be scheduling her surgery tomorrow and should be having it in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully she?ll heal up nicely and can resume her normal life.

[MrPrena]

Hope for the quick recovery and physical therapy.
These days even major knee surgeries doesn't hurt as much as 90s minor surgery.

[Irving]

Hope the surgery is before the blizzard. Good luck.