Has anyone here ever torn their meniscus? How did you deal with it? Did the pain go away? What treatment options were you given and which did you choose?

yeah, I did. No,the pain didn't go away. Surgeon just snipped it out so the ends didn't rub together. Don't really remember him giving me any other options. It was a real simple surgery. Was off the bike for about a week. Happened 6 years ago, and no pain since.

I tore my meniscus both laterally and medially in high school football. Arthroscopic surgery was the only answer.

What does it feel like to have a torn meniscus?

Huh. That's weird. My doctor gave me a cortisone shot (it's feeling better now, a few days later) and said that surgery can increase risk of arthritis in the knee so he seemed to be pretty against it. Any idea if they cut out just a section or the whole thing (that's what the doctor said they used to do)?

Have you jogged/run since the surgery? Biked as much? On hills?

Depends on the tear. Meniscus tear surgery will remove the damaged tissue if it can't be repaired. If there is healthy tissue, it will remain. They also could repair damaged tissue, if it can heal. The recoveries are vastly different. Removing meniscus and you can be up and around in 1-2 weeks. Repairing the meniscus, minimum of 6 weeks no weight bearing.

It depends where the meniscus tears. I partially tore mine last spring (along with the ACL). My tear was near the bloodline and the meniscus healed itself in the three months between the injury and ACL replacement surgery, so no surgery was performed on the meniscus.

While I was pre-habbing the original injury, it took about 2-3 weeks to get the swelling out. I started back to biking (and spin classes) without any problem with the tear.

Depends on what you want to do. I was going to repair it. But you can go forward without it.

Pretty sure he just cut out the whole thing. I'm 50 yrs old and ride a fixed gear with 48X16 gearing about 150 miles a week. Run with my girlfriend when she can talk me into it. No pain at all. Not in my knee anyway!

a torn meniscus can be a truly horrible feeling
I tore mine badly in my right knee,
surprisingly there was not much internal pain but when the torn piece started moving around, it was literally like a stone in your shoe
horrible physical feeling of something getting in the way, unable to straighten/bend knee without feeling something locking it up, sometimes it would move out of the way and suddenly the knee would start back feeling like 100%

Get it checked/cleaned out asap, otherwise you risk the torn piece abrading the articular cartilage on the bones which will cause major problems down the road which is never so far away, trust me, I know all about worn cartilage and would do anything to roll back the years to do things differently.

I tore mine back in 2004 while hiking in Poland. I saw a knee doctor a couple of days later. He told me (as interpreted by my girlfriend) that the torn meniscus could fold and wedge into the knee joint, causing the joint to lock. Not good.

I had surgery the day after seeing the doctor, and I haven't had any problems with the knee since.

For me, it started with a sharp pain that was exacerbated by walking down stairs or downhill. Walking on a flat surface, up stairs, or uphill was fine, but downhill was killer.

My left knee kills me going down hills. I have a permanent feeling that something isn't right in there, but it's never too bad. Sometimes it's a dull pain all day, sometimes I don't even feel it. It all started a few years ago when I was running 5+ times per week. Since it's in one knee and not both I'm pretty sure it's local damage. Sound similar?

I think little tears are fairly common athletic injuries. In college (35 yrs ago) I tore meniscus in one knee playing NCAA soccer. It was sore, swollen and would give way just like the "trick" knees you hear oldtimers talk about. Snap, crackle and pop sometimes, too. Best treatment option then was surgery or cortisone. I had excellent docs available. They were dubious, but tried cortisone first. Aside from them working the needle around in the joint and me whimpering like a little school girl, it was a miracle. A week later I had gone from pretty disabled to no pain. Two weeks later, I was 100%. No trouble since.

The other knee went "pop" on a cross country run two years ago. Doc said that the meniscus was torn, or perhaps a bit had come loose and turned under. Made me give it rest and time. Two months later, no relief. He said one more month and then orthoscopic would be scheduled. Two weeks later, I noticed some improvement. A week later, 90% better. At the end of that month, I was fine. Re-entered training and no trouble since. Doc, who is a good rider and frequent training partner was pleasantly surprised, but certainly not shocked at these developments.

Long post just to share some thoughts. Also b/c I broke my arm last week in a training ride and I'm bored.


TysonB

Thanks for all the answers! Right now my doc wants to wait on surgery and just give me cortisone (it does feel better, but I wonder if it's just feeling better and not actually better) and have me continue riding on it. I'm just looking at all my options.

The location of the tear is one of the most important factors in deciding whether surgery is indicated. See diagram below. You can click to get a larger view of the zones.


If you have a minor tear at the outer edge of the meniscus (red zone), treatment is usually non surgical since the tear will heal with rest.

If you have a moderate to large tear at the outer edge of the meniscus (red zone), the doc may consider repair since this area has a good enough blood supply to heal the surgical scar.


If you have a tear within the inner two-thirds (white zone) of the meniscus, surgical repair is usually not done because there is insufficient blood supply for healing. When these tears cause symptoms, the torn pieces are usually removed (partial meniscectomy).

By the way ,no long-term studies have proven that you can prevent osteoarthritis by surgical repair of the meniscus tear.

Also, horizontal, flap, long-standing, and degenerative tears—those caused by years of wear and tear—generally cannot be repaired.

Tore mine senior year of high school. It was kind weird. I woke up one morning and my knee was sore and kind of hard to walk on, but then it felt better as the day went on. I couldn't remember doing anything to cause the soreness. The next day I played a game of backyard football and the knee got horribly worse. By the end of the game, I'd be running along and BAM! I'd fall over because my knee could no longer handle the running. It hurt pretty bad. This continued for a month or so and my knee would keep giving out while playing sports so I went to get it checked out. Doc ordered an MRI, said I tore my lateral meniscus pretty bad (3 on a scale of 1 to 3) and that I needed arthroscopic surgery. A few days later, I'm on the table watching the operate on my knee since I elected to stay awake for it. They had intended on removing the damaged tissue, but the damage was extensive enough that they decided to try to repair it instead to save me trouble later on. They put some stitches in it and here I am, about 8 years later with no problems.

Minor tear a few years ago. Arthroscopic repair. Takes an MRI to diagnose. My primary care physician didn't think it was torn since I'd been biking and went on a 10-day backpack with it. He was wrong. It hurt like the devil.

I was spinning easy 4 days after surgery, back on the bike riding normal routes in 2 weeks, but it was really a year before I was back like I was. The worst of it was the damage to the surrounding tissues when they inflated and tourniqueted my knee for the arthroscope. Knee is perfect now.

This is why I'm going to another doc for a second opinion (and this one's an expert). I went to an orthopedic surgeon and all he did was push on the area and he told me it was a torn meniscus (he might be 100% correct on that) and that I just needed a cortisone shot. He shot down every attempt of mine to get an MRI or x-ray. So i got the cortisone shot and then per his instructions, I went riding on my bike 4 days later. No pain during the ride but the pain returned within 2 days and is now as bad as ever. He told me all tears are unrepairable (after reading on the unjury, this is not true but is the majority of cases). He never looked to see if it was still attached or floating around, etc. I am not happy.

Good plan.

TysonB

I had torn mine quite a few years ago in a dirt bike accident "one of many" came back to haunt me years later. I had my knee scoped three years ago and it's been about 90% ever since.. Actually it has gotten better since I took up road biking again..