Knee injury

I don't think I mentioned it previously, but while hiking this summer I fell and hurt my knee. I'm not sure exactly what happened, whether the leg got twisted or jammed or what, but it was pretty painful. After a while I was able to walk slowly back to the hiking lodge. The next day, on the advice of the owner, a mountain guide with decades of experience, I took a very short, slow walk. By the third or fourth day I was hiking almost normally. Each day it hurt in the morning, and it hurt when I stood up after sitting for too long. It also hurt if I moved it the wrong way. But after walking slowly for ten or fifteen minutes it seemed to loosen up and I was able to hike, including some nine-hour hikes on some pretty difficult terrain. I iced it the first couple of days, and wrapped it in a compression bandage for the first few days.

As soon as I got home I saw the doctor, and on Monday I had an MRI. Yesterday the radiologist's office called and told me I have a torn cartilage. (No details yet.) I have an appointment with the orthopedist on Monday. I have only uneducated guesses about what he might say.

Anybody here have orthroscopic surgery for a torn cartilage? How long did it take before you were able to engage in athletic activity such as cycling, hiking, or jogging?

I have a snowshoeing trip planned for December, and I'd hate to miss it. I'd get surgery, if offered, if I'd be recovered soon enough to get back in shape in time for that trip. I'd tough it out and snowshoe with the knee as is if the doctor says I would not be making it worse. After all, I hiked on it for two weeks, and I'm riding the exercise bike, which does not seem to make it any worse.

 

I'm actually not looking for medical advice. I'll get that from the orthopedist on Monday. What I am hoping for, is someone to say "My friend so-and-so had arthroscopic surgery and was able to resume riding the exercise bike two weeks later" or some such.

Six weeks on a brace and another six on light duty would put me into the middle of December and I'd miss the snowshoeing trip. I just want to hear (real) stories of quick recovery.

I actually think I could probably snowshoe on the knee as it is. I hiked on it for two weeks after the injury, and snowshoeing is easier on the knees than hiking, since snow lacks the sort of obstacles that hiking has, at least the sort of off-trail hiking I was doing. For example, at the place I hike, 3,500 feet of elevation gain is considered a lot, whereas in winter they ski 5,500 vertical feet in a day. This is ski touring, where you climb up using skins. No ski lifts.

But I'll take the doctor's advice if he says no.

Note: I misspelled arthroscopic above. That was not a typo. I do make a lot of typos, but that was just that I didn't know how to spell it until I looked it up just now.

 

UDATE:

I saw the orthopedist yesterday. He listened to my description of my fall and the progression of symptoms over time, then he examined my knee, then he looked at the MRI.

The cartilage tear is so minor it probably has nothing to do with the pain. He thinks there is only one chance in a hundred it will get any worse. The real issue was/is a bruise on the bone and some inflammation of the tendons. Bone bruises heal by themselves, but very slowly, maybe another month or two. There is no treatment or therapy needed, other than to avoid impact (no jogging until it's completely healed) and continue exercising. I can take NSAIDs if I have a flare-up or if I'm planning an unusually long or hard workout.

So I will keep riding the exercise bike, but will resume my normal number of days per week, which I had cut back on a bit just in case, and I will continue my long walks whenever the weather permits. I should be good to go by the time of my snowshoeing trip, with the proviso that I need to try out the snowshoes before making the trip, since walking in them is different than normal walking or hiking. (But modern snowshoes are much easier than the old-fashioned ones.)

It is a big relief that I do not need to get surgery, and that I can continue to exercise without fear of making the tear worse.

Several years ago, maybe 2007 or 2008, I hurt my ankle while hiking (I posted about it here at the time) and for the entire remainder of that season I had to stuff an extra wool sock down the side of my boot to cushion it. It always hurt starting out, and occasionally while hiking, but after ten or twenty minutes, it was mostly okay. I was able to hike the full season, and eventually (a few months later) it was healed. At the time I suspect that I had bruised the ankle bone, but didn't really know if that is possible. Now I know it is possible, and I am convinced that was the problem. Again back in January of this year in Sedona, I hurt my ankle while hiking and had to switch from boots to trail runners. By the time of my next hiking trip, in April, the ankle was fine. I think I may have bruised the bone again at that time.

So strictly speaking the visit to the doctor, the MRI, and the visit to the orthopedist were not really necessary. But they were worth it for the peace of mind.

 

Do you know the definition of "minor surgery"?

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Before we get to the answer...

We played soccer in my high school. I took up my position near the muddy corner of the field, and the ball never came my way, and everybody was happy.

I love hiking, and I exercise for health & fitness, but I've never enjoyed sports and I've never been any good at them.

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Surgery they do to someone else.

 

Being unable to walk uphill would be so serious for me that I'd do just about anything to correct it. I'd certainly take the small risk of surgical complications. If I could not walk uphill I'd be unable to hike in the mountains. I'd be miserable.

Presumably your grandmother was your present age 40 to 80 years ago. Medical technology has come a long way in 40 years. It was only about 40 years ago that fiber optics made the modern style of arthroscopic surgery possible.

The study in your link began with 16 people who had had unsuccessful ACL surgery, and used MRI to find out what had gone wrong. This says nothing about the success/failure rates of this kind of surgery.

I'm extremely happy that I didn't need surgery, but I'd have it done in a heartbeat if the alternative was that I'd be unable to hike in the mountains. -- And if they do totally blow it, there's always knee replacement. There are people running marathons on artificial knees.

Aleve lasts longer than ibuprofen (12 hours as compared to 4, IIRC), which is useful for a whole-day activity. My orthopedist said that some people get better results from one, some from the other.

I'm very lucky. It could have been a lot worse. It still could be. I don't take undue risks, but I've been on some extremely steep and sometimes very slippery terrain, some very scrambly ridges, some loose boulders. There are risks in everything we do, and I choose to take some controlled risks in order to be able to enjoy the most spectacularly beautiful country I've ever seen in my life, up close on foot, and to go off-trail (always with a competent guide) to get to the best spots my chosen wilderness lodges have to offer.

Ruedi Beglinger (owner, with his wife, Nicoline, of my favorite of these places) says that the mountains are his church. A woman I see there every year says that she has to get into the mountains to recharge her spiritual batteries. (She always plans to be there in the dark of the moon, and she brings a sleeping bag and sleeps under the stars.) I don't generally use that sort of language, but I think they are expressing essentially what I feel: an emotional impact of being in those mountains which is calming and refreshing and emotionally curative, as well as awe-inspiring. Nature at its most impressive.

I think that if I was religious I'd be an animist: seeing the divine not in a spirit in the sky, but rather in the rocks and the rivers, the trees and the flowers.

As soon as the summer hiking season is over, I'm anxiously waiting for the next hiking season to arrive.

I'm really glad I don't need surgery for my knee. -- The eyes are another matter: I will need cataract surgery next year if not this.