Arthroscopy 5 months ago has made knee worse- new member

[Margueritte]

Hi-
 I am 56 and a long time runner- or was. I began to have right knee pain and swelling last summer, an MRI showed meniscal tear, and the PA recommended arthroscopy. I saw the surgeon preop once, The surgery went well but I had a medial and lateral tear and some arthritis. It was felt I could run some in several weeks.
 I have had more pain than ever- now just with walking. I have been in rehab without success. Repeat MRI shows a new medial tear and signif arthritis. I have had 2 cortisone injections and 3 Simvisc injections.
 Not only can I not run- but can't swim, bike and certainly not elliptical.
 I am seeing another surgeon in the group this week.  I am very depressed. I used exercise to help with stress relief. No one mentioned this outcome as a possibility and I feel really stuck. There has got to be a way to allow me to get some exercise. I am misreable - and unfortunately am making those around me suffer from my depression over this. What can I do? I just can't accept that there will be no way to exercise forever.  I am also mad at the surgeon and PA for being so cavalier about all of this.
 Thanks for any advice you can give. I was nice to find  this forum. M

[eladd]

Hi there,

You really must try AposTherapy - it was recently introduced in the UK. it's a new biomechanical approach for the treatment of knee pain. There are currently two centres - one in London and antother one in Reading. It's a very effective therapy for rehabilitation following surgery or in cases of injury. In fact I actually know of someone with meniscal tear who was able to avoid surgery altogether thanks to AposTherapy. After two months he was back jogging and cycling.

Good luck
A.

[paddletennis]

Sorry to hear you're in pain. I had meniscus surgery about 6 years ago. It took me a good 7 months before I could play tennis again. I tried to come back too soon and got a bone bruise, which was worse than the surgery. And I wish I hadn't done the surgery b/c I now have severe arthritis in my right knee, which my surgeon neglected to tell me.  I am very active, 55 years old, and still play tennis and paddle tennis,  but I pay for it after. I am seeing a Dr in LA on Monday who has "a groundbreaking new devise for arthritis".  Aside from that, I'm toying with the idea of prolotherapy to see if I can regrow some of the cartilage.  My biggest fear is having a partial knee replacement, which could end my tennis days.  I'd recommend seeing another doctor, and maybe just resting the knee - no running for a while.  Good luck! 

[stickwr]

I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee on 11-17-2010. Paritial medial meniscectomy,removal of a loose body and the worst was smoothing of severe medial femur arthritis. If you can solve the problem of severe medial femur arthritis then I don't think you will  need a parial/total knee in the future. If you come up with other solutions please reply. Thanks Rit

[Nettan]

You mentioned swimming, instead have you tried doing your rehab in a heated pool ?
As your knee says no to weighbareing excercise but also no to circle movements, maybe you should go over to basic rehab and work your leg up from beginning again ?
Even if you now are awaiting a new OS appointment, it's never wrong to work on the muscles in the leg.

[flowride]

Sorry to hear you're in pain. I had meniscus surgery about 6 years ago. It took me a good 7 months before I could play tennis again. I tried to come back too soon and got a bone bruise, which was worse than the surgery. And I wish I hadn't done the surgery b/c I now have severe arthritis in my right knee, which my surgeon neglected to tell me.  I am very active, 55 years old, and still play tennis and paddle tennis,  but I pay for it after. I am seeing a Dr in LA on Monday who has "a groundbreaking new devise for arthritis".  Aside from that, I'm toying with the idea of prolotherapy to see if I can regrow some of the cartilage.  My biggest fear is having a partial knee replacement, which could end my tennis days.  I'd recommend seeing another doctor, and maybe just resting the knee - no running for a while.  Good luck! 

Hey there, let us know about this "groundbreaking new device!"  As for the prolo, I can tell you that it works, but I do believe that you have to do some regular follow up.  I got my last injection about a year ago and wish I would have gotten some maintenance doses thereafter.  Biggest grief with prolo is the cost.  To get both knees injected, it ran about $450.  Same doc does PRP...at $800 per knee.  There's also a stem cell place here in L.A.  I've touched base with them via email, still waiting for a response. 

To the OP.   Synvisc works great...for about the 3 weeks you take the injections.  After that, it's useless-especially if you're active.  At least that's my experience.  Best of luck to you...to all of you (us) in getting some relief!

[teacher ted]

Synvisc works well for me, but my new OS told me after 3 injections, he'd stop, he said, "no one knows what these shots will do to you down the road"

My reg doc said he wouldn't have let me have my last arthro at 50 as he said too many get OA from arthro at 50+ years old. ( he wasn't my doc, then)

I bet you can swim if you do the freestyle, I can swim a mile ok and cannot do really anything else for exercise. Any other strokes buggers the knees pretty badly (for me)

Swimming is the most god-awful exercise, boring as can be imagined, I feel like I'm stuck in the movie, Cocoon, yuck.

[WonkeyDonkey]

Hi

I had an arthroscopy 4 months ago, had a partial medial menisectomy, chrondoplasty, debridement, also removal of notch osteophytes and then told I had grade 4 osteoarthritis and for a few weeks was told not to run, or swim, however after that I was allowed to swim front crawl only, but can also swim back stroke. This was great as for a few months I had not previously been able to get in or out of the pool. Swimming is very much part of my life and as I also teach swimming and life saving, I have adapted some of the lengths by using leg floats and hand floats, to vary the boredom of swimming lengths. Other strokes are not recommended because of the twisting action of the knee.

Go with other people, and go when the pool is not to busy. Just take it easy and think about other things in your life, also relieves the boredom.

Sometimes I find that havng done some exercise makes my knee hurt more, but not really sure if rest is the answer either as that makes it hurt when I get up as well.

Good luck to all knees.

[flowride]

Well, they will do the initial Synvisc at my Ortho office, with a follow up shot every 6 months.  It would be great for me if it actually lasted, because my knee (they would only shoot up one, for some godforsaken reason) felt great for those 3 weeks, totally like I was 20 years old again.  Swimming is a great exercise, but boring as hell.  I have a pool in the backyard and it doesn't really matter-I'd rather be at the gym, doing some squats, deadlifts, etc.  Then again, along with heredity and the motorcycle accident that broke the camel's back, those lifting exercises are probably what got me in this mess!

[deema137]

I'm in similar position, but awaiting surgery.  I'm really not keen for the reasons you give, so am looking at apos therapy shoes.  Trying to find somewhere I can afford.  I'm going to ask my surgeon if he will oblige.  Bupa give them free to their customers, because its cheaper than op I guess, so I wonder if the nhs will also oblige.  Worth a look. Good luick.  Its very painful and very frustrating but don't give up hope. Dee