Water on the knee

Meniscus surgery=3-6 weeks recovery typically. Nothing too much really. If you continue to do the shots and avoid the surgery, you're setting yourself up probably for continued knee problems and eventually needing a total knee replacement...

You have my sympathy. I have a torn meniscus that I've put up with for several years. I quit running and doing many other sports that I love. It has gotten to to the point that because I was favoring my other knee my back started to hurt.

So I finally had an MRI recently that confirmed a bucket tear. Due to the chronic injury I will periodically get swelling on the back of the knee (Bakers cyst). I am going to have surgery soon because it is interfering with my normal life so much.

I saw a friend yesterdy that had meniscus repair 1 week ago. She had a spinal anesthetic so she watched the entire procedure. 3 little incisions that you can hardly see and a long acting local anesthetic injected into knee after surgery. She was numb for 24 hours and then has only taken 2 Ibuprofin since.

She was on crutches 2 days and feels great now.

I have been told that if you ignore damage like this too long it can contribute to arthritis in the knee. The fluid build-up is most likely from swelling and inflammation. Just like we tell our athlete sons, you probably should have an MRI to get the proper diagnosis.

Good luck!

Thanks guys - Bulldog our trainer saw me limping the other day at practice and came over to check on me. Something moved inside of my knee that hurt really bad and almost took me down like a sniper got me. She pretty much said the same thing that I'm probably looking at knee replacement down the line. To be honest that really scares the hell out of me. She said that the recovery is really good and kinda faster than you would think. So that helped a little. I've never had any kind of surgery before (well I had LASIK a few years ago but not sure if that counts since I was in Hooters about 20 mins after the surgery LOL).

CaBB I'm with you in that I have almost stopped a lot of things due to the pain. The worst part isn't that it's a overly chronic pain but a dull pain that turns into a sharp pain when stuff moves (well it feels like it moves in there). My pain is in the back of the knee but the swelling is in the front, to the right of the thing they hit to test reflexes and under the kneecap (not behind it but below where you can see the puffiness). The swelling goes away pretty quickly though.

Steps have become the bane of my existence now. The worst part is that my left knee is in bad shape too. I was born with my kneecaps slightly off center and I've dislocated my left kneecap 5 times over the years. I'm like a motorcycle with two blown tires trying to drive down the road.

Although I'm scared of the surgery I really don't care how bad the scars are on my knees if I get it done. They can put a zipper in there as long as the pain goes away. I'm going to try and get through football season and get another look at by the doctor in November sometime.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I had a bucket tear of the meniscus with a partially torn ACL and MCL repaired around 7 years ago. Since I was not actively playing anymore, repair to the Ligaments was restricted to electric pulse to bind them instead of replacement. The meniscus was trimmed. All was done arthroscropic with the 3 little incisions.

I had the surgery on a Tuesday and was back in work the following monday, which was probably hasty. The pain is fairly high the first couple of days but with the cryocuff therapy that they give you, once the swelling went down, the pain largely went as well. I was back to normal totally in a couple of months. My Physical Therapy was water exercise and swimming.
Like you I had movement and periodic pain. I now play basketball, can squat to catch for my son and generally have normal range of motion for my age. Good luck, I delayed getting surgery for several years and am glad I finally did.

Oh Meniscus surgery my brother went for this and it takes him near 2 to 3 months, still he is not recovered with it.