Just to give a brief background, I had surgury in Feb. of this year, partial lateral meniscectomy, and it went fine. I sped through physical therapy, pretty quickly.
Now I’m comming up on 8 months post surgury and I still have a lot of pain when I run and lift. I’ve heard of people, through my doc. and others, who have had the same surgury and are out and running in a month or two time. I was supposed to go to USMC basic training in August but now I can’t ship until my knee is resolved and I’m running again.
I went back to see my doc recently and he said that everything seems fine, the pain should go away. Since then the swelling has gone down and when I bend my knee I can see there is a little bit of swelling still there.
Also, when I have run on it, I start experiancing hip pain. What’s the liklihood that it’s related.
Focus: Has anybody else had this surgury, or similar (medial meniscectomy), and how long did your recovery take? Should I just wait it out longer or go back and press my doc. for another MRI to see if there is any scar tissue or another issue?
I had the same surgery as you (right knee) on august 29th, it’s been 4 weeks since and I still have some pain, I’m unable to run and I can’t get into a full squat position with only my bodyweight (will see the ortho on oct 3rd). On top of that I went through pulmonary embolism due to anesthetics.
I’ve seen a PT and there’s water in my knee. As long as there is some fluid inside your joint you’ll feel pain, disconfort and stiffness. Did your ortho suspected any residual tear ?
Nah, my ortho said everything “looks” fine. He moved it around and said it didn’t feel weird or anything.
There’s definately fluid still in my knee. If I bend my knee slightly I can push on either side of the tendon right below the patela and can see fluid buldge out the other side. This doesn’t happen with my good knee. I had the surgury on my right knee also.
I’m slightly concerned of residual tearing, or scar tissue. I don’t know what the liklihood of either is, but I’m still hurting.
Keep me posted on your recovery. I’d like to know how your knee progresses.
Focus: Has anybody else had this surgury, or similar (medial meniscectomy), and how long did your recovery take? [/quote]
I had the medial meniscus removed in my right knee back in '79 or '80.
I don’t remember any problem getting back to normal fairly quickly. I don’t remember exact times (it’s been ~28 years!), but I think the swelling/pain was gone in a few weeks, and I was 90-95% as good as new in a couple of months, and 100% after about a year (and I had a very active/physical lifestyle).
Your recovery seems significantly slower than mine. Even if my memory is a bit off, it’s been 7 months for you and I’m certain that long before then I was running/bicycling/sprinting up and down stairs with no swelling/pain/etc.
My Dr. had a lot of experience doing this surgery, which helps considerably.
Boring or sharp… that’s a very good question. I guess the best way for me to describe it would be while running, when it starts to hurt it would be a boring pain with sharp pains when my injured leg (right) hits the ground. Or, for example, right now my knee aches.
Ok, this is my advice, I’m not doctor or anything, so take this as you will…
Your aches will always be there unless you’re pretty fortunate. My knee slighty aches as well right now. In fact, the last time I was on a plane, the boring pain was so intense that is was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had in my life.
Mind you that was a few months back at 21 years of age, and my surgery dates all the way back to when I was 6. What I do when the pain is intense is take a HOT bath. Thankfully it doesn’t happen THAT often. I’m just warning you that you may want to get used to dealing with it.
As far as the sharp pain, that doesn’t sound right. Even though your doctor tells you you’re ok, you have to be the judge of your own body. In fact, many doctors these days just flat out don’t know what they’re doing. In fact when I was on crutches awhile after my surgery, I was given the go ahead to be off of them and walk on my own. Needless to say a second doctor eventually spazed out and said there was no way I should’ve been off crutches that soon and then put me back on them.
To summarize…
You’ll probably always have pain of somesort. You just have to determine which pain is acceptable and which pain is out of the ordinary. You have to be your own judge and fluff off the small stuff.
Not all doctors know what they’re doing. Getting second and sometimes even third opinions is very beneficial.