Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Torn Meniscus slow you down?

Went to the Dr. yesterday. Swollen knee (Swollen/tight dull ache) for the last week. Showed up the day after refereeing a football game. (1 of many) X-Ray showed nothing. MRI in the morning. Doc says I can work out/ref as much as I can stand the pain. If meniscus is torn does this make sense? He said do not over stretch the knee/quad.

Hopefully it is just fluid. MRI will tell the tale. Good luck.

Mine does. I had surgery on the left one, still hurts. Go in the 25th to check them both out. Biggest thing is when your legs go, it changes your lifestyle. Take care of your knees.

Changes lifestyles, ain't that the truth. Repaired 12 years ago, looking at replacement now..

Torn meniscus can certainly slow you down. I used to be a decent distance runner, can't run now, due to meniscus damage. Knees swell up something fierce when I try to run or overuse them. Pretty constant pain. Look at getting them scoped, but doc thinks that may not help. He's talking replacement, but I'm leery due to the potential effects on my professional life, and a friend died from a staph infection from knee replacement. But to answer the OPs question, you can go a long time if you can stand the pain, but eventually you'll get tired of it.

Nah, being young and bulletproof my knees work for me. Fugg em'

My knee would totally lock up with the torn meniscus. I was hunting in Arizona when it 'struck'. It was a BEAR walking up an hill/mountain.

Had surgery (after MRI confirmed torn meniscus) about 2 months later.

Been good for the past 22 years.

Had my left one repaired after tearing it deer hunting. Been pretty much 100% since then. I think it really depends on how much and how big the tear is. Mine was relatively small but the ACL was torn about 80%.

Do your PT and stay active.

I've had both of my medial menisci removed, #2 maybe 10 years ago. Went to work next day both times, no problems running marathons and 50Ks since.

If it's "only" a meniscus it should just be a small bump in the road (pun intended)

I've had two surgeries on my right knee. The first one was a mess and after 10-12 years of lockups and it going out, I had another done and have had none of the problems with it collapsing on me or locking up. Now, after 23 years of bone on bone, I'm close to needing a replacement. I'm going to try supplements, which seem to be helping, and put it off for as long as I can. It ain't fun.

But we ain't all carved out of cream cheese.....grin

I had my left knee repaired two years ago.I had three tears in my meniscus and also chondromalacia of the femoral condyle.Don't know how any of this happened,maybe wear and tear over time,maybe from impact of jumping off a trailer,just don't really know.Don't remember any one event that I can say caused the damage.Two years later,I say I did the right thing getting it fixed.I does take time to completely heal,but it's much better than feeling pain everyday.I did have a good doctor and I feel like nothing ever happened.

Had the right knee scoped one time and it is like nothing had happened to it.
The left knee was scoped 2 times,the first was after falling in the shower and twisting trying to land on the tub edge.
The Doc said it was torn up so bad that the meniscus was removed and he drilled several holes in the bone heads to(in his words)piss them off to generate scar tissue.
Because i was to young for replacement at the time.
After a wreck it was scoped once again and the scar tissue was shaped up some and it has worked fine.
It is definitely had to work thru when you are on your feet a lot much less running.

Here's the perspective of a guy who has had 8 knee surgeries and a knee replacement.

A torn meniscus can cause you a good deal of grief. I actually tore an ACL that hurt less than one of my meniscus tears. It all depends on where and why. If the tear is toward the outside of the meniscus, then they tend to hurt more, especially if it's a medial tear (toward the inside of the knee). If the tear is more toward the center of the meniscus (deep in, toward the center of the knee) then there is typically less pain.

Things that help...Anti-inflamatories are where it's at, but be careful; that stuff will burn a hole in your stomach and over time kill your kidneys.

There was a study done at Harvard Medical back in the late 1980's were a doctor ground up dried chicken cartilage and gave it orally to patients with arthritis in their knees and hips. The pain relief was quite impressive. Turns out eating cartilage promotes cartilage growth and repair. So the way you get the same effect is by drinking a glass or orange juice with one packet of Knox unflavored gelatin (gelatin is beef cartilage), a couple times a week. I've done this and it honestly works. If you have a bad stomach pick something other than orange juice. It's gritty and weird going down, but it has no flavor. Stir, take a drink, stir, take a drink and do that until it's all gone.

When the MRI is done, if they find a tear (and you probably have a tear) then you'll need surgery. If the tear is toward the outside of the meniscus, they'll do a menisectomy where they just cut out the part that's bad, and you'll grow it back. If it's toward the middle, there's very little circulation in there, so they'll repair it with a suture. I've had both, you really wanna hope it's the menisectomy; they're easier and you recover quicker.

Arthroscopic surgery is a walk in the park. Have it in the morning, you'll be feeling up to going out to dinner or a movie in the evening. Going out to dinner became kind of a ritual for me. All in all it does take a good 3 weeks before you're back to about 90%, and 6-8 weeks for the last 10%.

I remember the good ole days.

Thought I tore my left meniscus 2 weeks ago bowhunting after dragging out my buck by myself. Next day did all I could to barely gimp around. Took a few advils afterwards, then stopped. Don't like pills, and I can do pain.

Guess it wasn't torn because just yesterday I started feeling a lot more normal. No matter, things ain't like they were 30 yrs ago.

-Ken

depends where and how its torn.....and be warned the MRI doc may call it torn when it isnt....forget what its called but there is a meniscal tear that MRI reading docs love to diagnose but when a knee doc opens you up never finds....was the first knee injury i was diagnosed with via MRI and it turned out i just bruised the meniscus.....one of the damn good docs said the only time he has ever seen that sort of tear was with a parachutist that had a jump go wrong and a shoot not totally open and landed with his knees locked....[bleep] if i can remember what its called...did tear it for real in a different spot some years later..where does it hurt?

My right knee has been swollen for over a week. It does not lock up but clicks/cracks on the outside. The pain starts on the outside in the morning. By mid morning as it swells tighter I feel pressure under the top of my kneecap. By lunch the whole top half of my knee is puffy tight/dull ache. I teach science and am walking around non-stop from 7:45-1:00. Cannot attempt to bend my lower leg back and grab my ankle(Quad stretch). Pain is not excruciating; just a dull, continuous ache. Refereeing a football game tomorrow will be sporty. MRI at 8:00 in the morning.

You probably have a pint of fluid in there.Have the Doc syringe it out and take some anti inflammatory`s.

What do you expect, being as old as Moses?

I hear ya! I am 54 and can still run under 5 in the 40. Well; before this anyway.