10 Sep The Knee Surgery Question Almost Nobody Asks
A torn meniscus rarely announces itself dramatically. There is a twist while getting out of a car, a squat in the garden, a bad landing in a social football match. Then a swollen knee that clicks, catches, or simply refuses to straighten. A few weeks later you are sitting in a consultation room, looking at a grey MRI image you cannot read, being told the cartilage is torn. Most people at that point ask one question. Do I need surgery or not? It is the wrong first question. The more useful one is what kind of surgery, because two quite different operations hide behind that single word. One trims the torn cartilage away. The other, meniscus repair surgery, stitches it back together and asks your body to heal it. Those two paths lead to noticeably different knees ten years from now. According to the AAOS American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, whether a torn meniscus can be repaired depends largely on the location, size, and pattern of the tear, as well as the patient's age and activity level — factors that should drive the surgical decision more than symptom severity alone.
[caption id="attachment_75944" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Photo by Funkcinės Terapijos Centras[/caption]