Re: RC: knee surgery

[Jerry & Susan Milam <milamj@agtelco.com>]

Rides 2 Far wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Since bad knees apparently are a major part of endurance, I figured it
> was justified to have one more public post on the knee situation, to
> educate and inform you :-).  THANK YOU to all who wrote and gave me an
> idea what to expect.  For those of you who are interested...ACL surgery is common in the older set and very successful.
> 
> Now, for my situation.  Turns out that the reason my knee is locked up
> right now is that the meniscus (padding between the bone ends) is torn
> and doubled over which is blocking the action of the joint.  It's
> apparently been torn a long time, (how was I supposed to know) but just got itself folded just right the other night.  I'll have surgery Thurs. morning and they'll cut it away...tiny incision, no stitches.
> 
Angie, I've had two of these surgeries a long time ago. They used to
just cut the dangly piece off , but most orthopods feel it's better if
they can repair the cartilage ..sew it back together now. I have both my
knees without cartilage on one side, which means bone rubbing on bone!
YUCK!./ If you can, have them repair it unless it's too damaged.

> Now, for those of you with ACL problems. My original injury came from a mare rearing over backwrds on me in 1979. The Dr. said, "you did this 20 years ago?  Why didn't you ever get it fixed for goodness sake?"
> 
>  I said, "20 years ago they said they don't fix them, and then in 1989
> when I injured it again they said I wasn't a good candidate and it's a
> difficult surgery".   He said, "1989?  Oh yeah, in 1988 I said I'd never do this surgery, it took 6 hours and we almost always had to go in again and again, it was not a successful surgery; but now we've gotten very successful at it and fix them every day".    Well DUH!  Like I call a surgeon every year and check to see what improvements they've made.

ACL surgery is tough. It will take 6mo-1yr of hard rehab. Depending on
your age, it might be better if you left it torn and just strengthened
the knee with lots of quad and mostly hamstring strengthening. I work
with PTs and see ACL repairs daily. It's a rough road to go. Strengthen
your hamstrings real good.

With an arthroscopic meniscus repair, you'll be back riding in no time:)

Happy Tails,

Susan

>


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