[bulldog]

Originally Posted by Fairygdmther

The meniscal tears are painful - have had them in both knees, but before they had arthroscopic surgery for them. They are shaped like crescent moons, and the thinest side of each is toward the middle of the knee, and that's where they tear, on that inside curve.

Without treatment, the loose piece will eventually fall off, leaving what's called a 'loose body' in the joint. These cause problems from time to time by floating into a bad place between the femur and tibia, and can temporarily prevent you from totally straightening or totally bending your knee, until it shifts back to a corner.

During arthroscopy, they use a 'shaver' to fragment the pieces and flush them out of the knee. You can't sew them back into place or otherwise fix them. They leave a place where the femur and tibia can rub against each other and erode the bone surfaces, that used to be protected by the cartilage discs.

Now all this assumes that what you have is a torn meniscus. If you have any stability problems, then you may have torn the medial or lateral collateral ligaments (see the pic above). Those can be repaired. They are the tight bands that hold your knee straight, and prevent it from sliding out of joint toward the inside or outside of your leg. It also could be the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament, though there's also a posterior one - the PCL, it's rarely torn that way). The two of them cross over in back of the joint and keep your knee from bending backwards the wrong way. An ACL tear can be excruciatingly painful. It too, can be repaired. You need to see an orthopedic doc - try to find a sports doc - they are the best to determine what's the best way to approach treating this kind of injury.

FGM

Thanks FGM