Hello,
I learned this week that I have a torn meniscus. I am looking for general knowledge and feedback about the subject and my situation.
I am giving out a bounty for comments that are valuable to me. I will follow the same procedure as in my last bounty post (https://steemit.com/bounty/@knircky/wanted-how-to-bring-value-into-the-steemit-ecosystem-usd200-sbd-bounty)
*Please read this post and provide feedback on how to deal with my injury. Ideally you should have some experience or knowledge and let me know how you qualify. The best comments will receive $200 bounty.
70% of that payout will be decided by me and the rest by the amount of votes the comment generates in SBD. If anyone wants to support this idea by adding to this bounty send SBD or STEEM to my account with the comment "bounty". I will add this to the bounty and let you decide how to distribute your part of the bounty. The bounty will be paid out some time after two weeks from now on Tuesday Dec-1. Please also read my original post how bounties could work: https://steemit.com/steemit/@knircky/the-potential-of-bounties-an-improvement-proposal-for-steem-to-double-its-value
Remark: Your comment must be valuable to me and about the subject in general in order for me to pay out the bounty. If there are no comments that do pertain to my situation and meniscus injuries I will not pay out. You can see that I failed to make such a statement in my last bounty post and paid the bounty even though I did not feel that I received valuable feedback. This time I will be more critical and expect some effort and expertise to go into the post in order for me to pay up*
Background
I am 39 years old and have been active when I was young but stopped working out when in college. In college I played basketball in the college team (Germany so nothing glorious) and ever since have practically done no sport. So basically just gotten fat over the last 15 years. Some of my friends asked me about a year ago to play basketball with them and I have been playing basketball practically weekly since. I also joined a Gym about 5 months ago and have been exercising 2-3 times every week including basketball. I am about 100 lb overweight and weigh 280 lb with a height of 6 feet 3' or 193 cm.
How I got injured
There is no particular event that I know of that led to the injury or anything that I can remember. What has been happening over the last couple of months is simply pain in my knees and legs after exercise, particularly after basketball. This is usually noticeable the next morning when I get out of bed. the same thing also happens when i go to the gym where i have a trainer that makes me do all kinds of exercise that involve legs and weights. (thrive)
The first time I noticed issues was in February of this year, I went to Penn medicin, took X-Rays but the Dr., who was a knee specialist said he could not see anything wrong with the knee. He suggested an MRI and said he would request it from my insurance. The pain went away and I simply did not follow up.
Diagnosis
Over time my pain in the knee came back and became stronger and stronger, so I decided to go to Penn medicine again. This time I was adamant to get an MRI. Before getting the MRI a knee and sport specialist analyzed my knee and thought it did not look very bad and that I was ok to play basketball and work out. So I did play basketball last week and was just very careful not to hurt my knee. I went to the gym the day after. The next day I noticed my knee started to hurt quite a bit to the effect that I can not walk without limping or sit with my knee bent.
The result came back this week. My knee looks pretty much like the picture below, except that the tore is about 1/3 as visible
Another thing that came up in the MRI was that the bone on the side of the knee that is torn shows irritation and signs of aging according to the MRI report. The Dr. indicated that is likely a result of the issue of the torn meniscus and as such should be removed.
He suggested surgery.
Some questions
I have never been in surgery and as such I had some questions. Something that was weird to me is that the Dr. and his assistants were very detailed when reviewing the MRI and my injury but whenever we spoke about the surgery I felt they were very evasive and it seemed like I was being sold.
There were also some things that were inconsistent about the statements that were made
- I was told that I would be able to walk 2-3 days after the surgery w/o cruches
- I was told I should take off work for 2 week
- I was told I can travel after 1 week (fly)
- I was also told that I would start physical therapy 1 week after the surgery
- I was told there is really no time pressure to when to do the surgery
When I spoke with others and did some research online it looks more like the recovery period is 4-6 weeks, so all this seems a bit strange.
I have no clue about any of this, I am a computer scientist and know nothing about biology my questions were probably not the best.
Situation and Surgery Schedule
I have travel planned in November, December and January. In January I need to fly to EU (i live in Philadelphia) for work and I was going to go home to Germany over NYE for a week. I am an Expat and like to visit my family at least once a year.
Another option was to schedule the surgery mid December, but I am worried that I won't be able to travel to Eu in January in that case and I am not allowed to take any days off in December for work.
As such I have scheduled my surgery January 20. directly after my business trip to Rome. Penn said that this made perfect sense.
What I am looking for
I am looking for general advice and background info to my situation and if the decisions I made are decent or sub-optimal.
I really want to go home and on the business trip, however if it is bad for my knee I am happy to cancel my business trip and stay home over the holidays.
There is however risk and loss of value if I do not go on the business trip, so if it does not make a major difference like the Dr. says, I prefere that option overall. December is also a very busy time for work to the effect that I am not allowed to take any PTO, so having surgery that month is best to avoid if at all possible.
Aside from the specifics I am also looking for general background and information about this sort of injury and how I should deal with it.
Thank you for taking the time and looking into this for me.