I had meniscus surgery on both knees. Sports injuries. Went very well, was easy, and very little recovery time. Of course, I was only about 30 at the time of the surgery. I lost about 1/3 of the meniscus on both knees. The cartilage had kind of flipped over on itself. Just was never going to flatten out and be ok.

The person who advised me to get the surgery was my chiropractor.

So, that might be one way to go. Have a chiropractor assess it and see if he thinks it can be resolved without surgery.

Of course, the chiropractor's vested interest is in more treatments, so that can work against a fair assessment.

In my case, my chiropractor said, right off, he wasn't sure if his treatments would be enough to prevent surgery. So, he was completely honest.

But, then again, he is a more unusual case. He came from money, so he had no need to push people into treatments.

I know two excellent chiropractors here in NJ. If you want to sojourn to the Garden State, I can pass along their names.