Acute torn meniscus

Anybody had this injury before? I'm most interested in hearing about recovery timeframe / techniques if anybody wants to share. I have a big trip coming up early next year and managed to stuff my knee over the weekend (small incident with a steep clay slope and a moment's inattention...)

Yep, I've got the same problem, happened at Labour weekend, and like you a moment's inattention and a mis-step. The worst thing was I still had 1 1/2 days to walk out on the sore knee. My tear according to the physio is at the mild to moderate end of the scale. Treatment at the moment is weekly physio and strengthening exercises 3x a day. The recovery was guesstimated at weeks/months as the cartilage is very slow to heal because of its poor blood supply. In the past month I've gone from been able to limp about 10 minutes and really struggling to get out of a chair to easy flat walking for an hour before needing to stop, which is a long way from doing a decent tramp still. The knee still clicks locks, and pops if I'm sitting for too long.

i had surgery, removed part of it that was catching in the joint. no problem after that

Thanks. @nzbazza - that walk out must have been nasty. I only had six hours to do and that was bad enough. @waynowski - how soon were you back in to serious tramps after surgery? I'm having an MRI in a couple of weeks and this may be an option for me.

Not the same injury,but if we're sharing getting crocked... 2 weeks ago was into day 2 of the Toharoa-Zit Saddle-Lathrop Saddle tramp and we were slogging up Adventure ridge when I slipped on a wet tree root (one of a million on that track) and pulled the groin as I tumbled over. Couldn't lift my leg above 6 inches and as we still had another 900 odd vertical metres to the saddle to go we had to bail back down to Cedar Flats hut. Walked back out in pain the next day. Still limping so thats redefined my Xmas tramp plans,it'll have to be something a bit easier than what I planned. Hmmm maybe something like exploring the Upper Wilkin/Top Forks area.

Hi folks, just quickly, I'm not new here, rather I think my profile was blocked because I think I upset someone? Matthew? :D Anyways, Ive had both the above injury and a torn ACL myself and also work with high performance athletes so have seen lots of these. If it is just torn meniscus, your looking at about 6 weeks. If you don't need surgery (its not affecting flexion/extension) then avoid it, this can lead to more problems. I'm not questioning your diagnosis, but a lot of gp quacks do give this diagnosis and ends up being ligament damage (ACC?) so perhaps you will know more if you get scan, but often this doesn't show much. I had the key hole surgery, and was walking around no probs the day after, in 2 weeks almost back to normal. After full ACL repair, it was a bit different.. Also, make sure you keep your muscles moving, the quads waste at a ridiculous rate..

Yup. Last week. Up on Nelson Lakes. Achilles tendinitis. Despite rest it's still pretty sore. About to embark on Caples Greenstone with lots of strapping tape and ibuprofen.

Thanks @pipeking - good info. Pretty sure GP is on to it - checked for ligament/tendon damage and couldn't find any, plus the constant popping and clicking backs her diagnosis up. 6 weeks I can live with - am staying as mobile as possible but might lay off the squats for a few weeks :-)

no worries bro, yea sounds like meniscus! I had a similar thing but my knee was real swollen and I lost about 50% flexion, anyway when I got in for the op the doc told me I had no acl :( so I tried to get by with no ligament but its not worth it.. 3 ops and 8 years later I'm never gonna be 100% again.

@hutchk, a year has passed, how is that knee now? Operation? Full recovery? I'd be interested to hear how you got on. As of today, I'm in the same boat but the future is unknown. Till I see the specialist I don't know if it will require surgery… And anyone wishing to share their experiences regarding the outcomes of knee surgery please speak up! Thanks :-\