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Complex tear at the body of the medial meniscus
Will this tear heal on its own? The orthopedic PA I saw discouraged me from getting the MRI because he said there wasn't anything they could do about it anyway. There is also moderate to high grade cartilage loss, a tiny tear on the lateral meniscus, strained ACL, and strained distal quadriceps tendon. I'm 76 years old and walking is my life. I have a 1 year old puppy to keep up with and cannot walk without a brace. It has been about a month and a half. I'm very discouraged. Anyone else with a similar injury ?
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Hello @nbds, Welcome to Connect. I know it must be terribly discouraging not being able to walk and keep up with your puppy without a brace. If it were me, I would probably try and get a second opinion with an orthopedic specialist if for nothing else to comfort my mind that I've done everything in my control to get better. I did find an article on the topic that might be helpful.
"Authors concluded that arthroscopic partial medial meniscectomy in patients older than 40 years is an acceptable and effective long-term treatment, particularly in patients without significant articular cartilage damage. Arthroscopic resection of flap tears from the posterior horn of the medial meniscus was also shown to have less favourable outcomes in the presence of chondromalacia in a review of 93 patients"
--- Treatment of meniscal tears: An evidence based approach: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4095015/
@jenniferhunter may have some thoughts on your injury. Have you considered getting a second opinion?
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1 Reaction@nbds ouch! I’m sorry to hear that you are going through this awful pain.
The meniscus in my right knee tore all by itself. I was just walking around when bam! Ouch…
My orthopedic doctor tried shots, ice, etc…I finally had surgery and it was so much better.
Several years later, I had a total knee replacement. I’ve been pain free since…
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1 ReactionAll I can tell you is that I had a medial meniscus tear. Bad enough that the ortho wanted to “clean it up”.
Ultimately I had a “micro fracture” of the distal femur allowing blood to pool between the femur and tibia creating a “replacement” if you will, of the meniscus. That was 6 years ago and I was able to start bearing weight 6 weeks after. My friend had a cadaver meniscus placed, we are the same age. We both recovered similarly. We are both runners. We still “race” against each other.
Definitely seek ams second or even third or fourth opinions!!! That puppy needs a human!