Posted 3/25/2011 3:50 PM (GMT 0)
I sure hope that things settle down in this next month for you. Sometimes just waiting it out pays off with these knees. I have had several tears of the meniscus and tore the ACL and had surgery for these situations, not fun. The meniscus surgery is a pretty easy one to recover fro, but the ACL is more difficult. It took 18 months for the ACL to heal because 10 days post op I fell and twisted the knee horribly. I had to wear a Don Joy brace the entire 18 months, but it was better to wait it out than undergo another surgery. I was walking up the sidewalk at my orthos office for my post-op check up when this happened. I caught the toe of my shoe in the grooves on the handicap walk and was trying to keep from falling. I probably would have saved myself a lot of grief by just falling, but natural instinct is to try to prevent a fall and I really messed that knee up. By the time I got put in my room and the dr came in my knee was the size of a small cantelope and getting bigger. He wanted to put me in the hospital and I refused because my sister was with me visiting from out of state for a week. I had to go back a week later and that time I did not get to dodge the bullet, he insisted I go in the hospital. I had incredible swelling and pain, by that time I was ready for the hospital I was in so much pain. We did have to wait for a lot of the swelling to go down before we could do an MRI. So, if you have a lot of swelling going on this may be why your dr did not order an MRI. My neighbor a few summers ago raced dirt bikes and had a bad accident, broke both arms and messed up both knees. He had tears of the meniscus, his dr put him in PT. He wanted him in water so he would be weightless. He did his PT in my pool every day since it was summer and they healed. I was surprised.
I am going to keep my fingers crossed you do ok and not have to have any surgery on this knee. Take care.