Knee Surgery

I’ve posted before on training to compete in a submission wrestling tournament, and I’ve asked advice on weight training. Now my problem seems to be a little different. Last week I got caught in a heel hook which slightly tore my ACl and miniscus. My doctor told me that I may or may not be able to compete in March. He said its my choice because he knows how much this tournament means to me. My question to you all is should I get my surgery now to be safe or put it on hold for a while.

I had acl replacement and a small meniscus repair in July.

You need to find out the condition of your meniscus as much as possible. If your ACL is bad enough to need surgery, I’m not sure it can get worse. In other words, if it tore completely in a tournament, you get a transplant, you may even have more knee stability that with a partial tear. By the way, I’ve posted some of my progress on “6 week double band experiment” and I’ll probably do a more complete documentation of what to expect at the 1 year point.

IF the meniscus is torn slightly and in the right place (like I had) you have the potential to have it heal 100% as a result of surgery. If you injure it more, it becomes likely that you will have to have half or all of your meniscus removed. This would be my concern. If the doctor thinks he’s going to be removing the meniscus now, the chance that you might injure it is not a big deal. If he thinks you may not meniscus removal then the tournament may risk your meniscus.

I feel your pain. I snapped my medial meniscus when I was 18, and tore it off when I was 25. In 2002 I tore my lateral. Im finding leg training impossible. I cant squat, and Im having issues with my right knee falling in when I walk, leg press, squat. Its affecting my hip. Its driving me insane!!

hey man i feel your pain. i tore my acl, mcl and meniscus in may of 2003 and had it repaired that june. it was tough starting from scratch lifting wise, but now i am 18 months out and am stronger than i ever was prior.

if you try to copete without full stability in your knee you run the risk of damaging even more cartilidge or one of the other ligaments.

I’ve had surgeries for ACL/meniscus on both knees. I would say take a week off training if your knee is swollen at all and heal up. If you want to compete in March, do not have surgery now. If you only slightly tore your ACL then you might never need surgery, which is good. ACL replacement is a bitch. If you get your meniscus repaired then you will be out of commission for awhile which will most certainly affect your competition in March. If they remove part of your meniscus you could be training again in a week. The doctor usually can’t tell for sure till he gets in there though.
If you can train effectively enough to compete in March do so and compete without surgery.

Went to the doc again this morning, and got an MRI. From the results, I was told that I’m going to need surgery because my ACL is almost torn completely its barely hanging on. My medial miniscus has been severed all the way through. According to my surgeon, if I have the surgery now, I won’t have to replace my ACL, but if I compete and it tears through I will have to. This is a huge let down for me, but I have another whole year to rehab and train.

Good luck with the surgery. Be aware that MRI’s do not give a 100% correct picture. Just make sure your doctor knows your goals when he performs the surgery, in case things are different when he gets in there. For example, my last surgery I had my meniscus scoped. According to the MRI the ACL was fine, but when he was in there he discovered that it had torn and scarred on to another ligament. I still don’t know if I would have liked him to replace it while he was operating, but I do wish I would have discussed more alternative scenarios with him before i went uuuuunnnnnnderrrr…

I tore my medial meniscus in December 03 playing college football, went through springball, and then played my senior season (04) before having the surgery. I would tell you to have the surgery, because I ended up tearing mine worse and playing on it also made it wear on the cartilage on the head of my femur. So when I had it scoped it turned out that i had a spot about the size of a dime on my femur where it was bone and the cartilage had been worn off. So instead of being on crutches for 2 weeks, I was on crutches for 6 weeks, and I’m still not cleared to do any kind of weight training or impact exercises until march so that the cartilage will have time to regrow.