Question for those who have had medial meniscus surgery

I have had 3 partial meniscectomies on my medial meniscus in my rt knee. Each time they took a little bit more leaving me with "not freaking much" as my Doc so gently put it. Each one of my surgeries was a tiny bit different, but none of them were all that painful. Each Dr. treats the rehab a bit differently. My first surgery was when I was in professional sports, and they had me on crutches until I could walk without a limp (5 days or so), but I was on the exercise bike the day after doing easy spinning. My second two surgeries were years later, and they had me walk as soon as pain permitted (limping or not). I was instructed to do leg lifts starting the night of the surgery, and was pretty active within 4-6 weeks (I was not a runner then).

Here is the rub...if it hurts because of a tear, it will stop the pain when they cut it out. However, if they can repair it (a much tougher surgery and rehab), you are much better off in the long run. I'm now looking at serious problems from having nothing left. Be careful, find a good doc, and listen to them. Follow the rehab religiously. Good luck.

Good luck, I'm going for a meniscus transplant in two weeks...its new, kind of painful, and an intense rehab. The Dr. is really good, and thinks I will have a full recovery by summer if I put my time into the rehab.

Take it easy on the knee, if it hurts -- rest it. Don't forget to ice it...that always helped me. Running through it is not a great idea...take it from me...I played through the pain and it just made things worse.

A meniscectomy is no big deal...you will be back at full speed in 6 weeks. If you are still struggling after resting it, just do it and get ready for spring. Good luck.

I wish someone would speak further about autologous cartilage Trans/implantation. Are you talking about taking chondrocytes and implanting them under a flap to regenerate? Or do refer to the disc procedure where a healthy cylinder of joint cartilage is cored out and implanted in the distal femoral defect? I had the first of multiple menisectomies in 1973, eventually resulting in subtotal medial meniscal defects bilaterally. As a result, I and now have large cartilage defects on both medial condyles, severely limiting running (and making walking a challenge sometimes as well).

I've been told these procedures are reserved for acute traumatic disruption of the articular cartilage and are of little use/not indicated for chronic osteoarthritic changes. Any thoughts?