As you can tell from my name, I'm a skier.  Had microfracture in mid-October (so am now at around 8 weeks and half-weight bearing, due to stop next week & start PT).  My surgeon claims that I'll be able to ski in late January.  Any other microfracture skiers out there?

By the way, I can go for short periods of time without crutches without pain--but I am more comfortable with the crutches still.  My 'defect' was about 2cm across and resulted from a ski injury in December 2004.  In January 2005 I met my new allo-grafted ACL (and two knee surgeries later, to clean up scarring), the knee is stable & generally fine/pain--except for the pothole, which is slightly away from the full-weight bearing part the femur.  It was caused by the original injury and has just gotten bigger with time/age (I'm 60 and very active).  Apparently, I was on bubble for getting microfracture due to the size and the somewhat sketchy nature of the bone in the pothole--but the surgeon felt it was worth trying.  My recovery has gone well (although I haven't exercised the knee as much as requested:  1.5 hours/day on a bike or, in my case, a rowing machine).  I had *no* pain or swelling post-surgery at all.

So--skiers, comments?

Andy

I had *no* pain or swelling post surgery following mfx last June either (1.5cm2 on the mfc). My mfx failed in that the pain while walking was just as bad after surgery as it was before (even though the defect fully covered over with fibrocartilage).

Daenae - I had mfx last June and mosaicplasty this summer along with mfx on another defect. This was open knee surgery this time where the pain post surgery was pretty bad for 2/3 days - much worse than mfx. Indeed, I couldn't even do a straight leg raise until the 5th week post mosaicplasty. However I was able to ditch the crutches within a couple of days both times after 6 weeks of nwb.

Everyone is different but I think a lot of it is down to confidence. I just ditched the crutches and went for it.

Try going to 1 crutch first of all then try walking on your own but taking the crutch with you just in case.

Hi mark-i have to ask if your defects of the lateral condyles were in weight bearing areas?