[daniell]

The physical therapy was not helping my Miniscus tear. Last week I went for a second opinion. This time with an orthopedic surgeon. My previous doctor was a Physiatrist.
He said that having a miniscus tear was like a pebble in the shoe. Physical therapy wont help.
A few days ago, I met the doctor for a post MRI discussion. I was sure that he would schedule surgery. He said that I had a usual Miniscus tear. He also said that there was a bruised bone next to the torn miniscus. The doctor explained that it was possible that the pain was coming from that bone, not the torn miniscus. He suggested that I wait six weeks to see what happens. I do appreciate that he is not rushing into surgery.

 

[aclinjury]

did the ortho say to continue with physical therapy?

a friend of mine had a meniscus tear too, but did not know about it at the time (because Kaiser would not allow him an MRI). Well his doctor (from Kaiser) sent him into physical therapy, and it ended up messing up his meniscu tear even more! Of course he only found this out AFTER the Kaiser primary doctor agreed to send him to see a Kaiser knee ortho (and it was ortho who ordered the MRI). What should have taken 6 months max to heal turned into an almost 2 year ordeal after all is said and done.

 

[aclinjury]

carefuly with physical therapy. PT can actually make the tear worse

 

[skinewmexico]

Good idea about waiting to see the effect of the bone bruise, as the thinking in changing. A couple of football players from the college I went to blew up their knees 2 years (including ACLs), ad the doctors had them rehab for 8 weeks before surgery to give anything that might heal on it's own a chance to heal. Players supposedly came back faster than normal.

As for my own meniscus tear (surgery last January), I fought it off and on for about a year and a half before surgery. I could go easy for several weeks and it would get better, but then I could step wrong, or work too hard, and I was back to square one. Broke down, had surgery. Rehab was mostly stretching to regain range of motion. Started going back to spin class after 2 weeks; doc said do anything that involve impact, or hurt. I have a chondral defect under my kneecap that the doc was more worried about. Anyhoo......I was able to ride 200 miles in 4 days with a ton of climbing in Moab relatively pain free, after 70 days. It doesn't bother me much now, unless I lay off for a while, and overcook it, like I did yesterday.

Well, that ended up being long-winded, without saying much!

 

[Alfonsina]

My son tore his meniscus as a child and they operated on him within 24 hours. There was no physio RX for that tear. I think the scenario is you live with it, or you don't, but physio won't fix anything. I assume it has to do with insurance and health care policy too, I would not imagine our scenario playing out like this if we were back in a UHC country for example. Why do you see the physiatrist in the first place?