Do you have knee pain? Been told you’re doomed and just need surgery or perhaps feel like surgery is the only real option for you? Then this is an important article for you to help give you confidence in your knees again.
There is one surgery that still gets performed all the time staggeringly has evidence proving that it is actually harmful to knees BUT IT STILL IS BEING PERFORMED!!! You NEED to know what surgery this is so you don’t waste your time, money and health on it.
Rushing into surgery is something that we never need to see our patients doing but you need the best and most up to date information to truly form an opinion on what is the best course of treatment. It’s just not worth the risk.
However, when you see the right team with all that vital information not only will you get the best advice but you will quickly get out of pain and back to the things you love. Even if surgery is required eventually, the stronger and better functioning you are prior to will make the outcome that much more successful.
What is this surgery then?
A meniscectomy.
Common ways we hear our patients describe a meniscectomy is that it’s “a cleanup”, “knee keyhole surgery”, “an arthroscope where the surgeon chopped some bits out”. This is one of the most common surgeries performed in the western world and actually has a lot of evidence that it results in worse outcomes and more arthritis in the long term!!!
How this scenario happens is that years ago when arthroscopic surgery became a thing it provided a new avenue for surgeons to get in an chop out bits of frayed and damaged hyaline cartilage known as your meniscus. At the time this would logically seem like a good thing. It’s not until now, years later, that we know the long term outcome for these people and unfortunately, even a damaged bit of meniscus, provides protection to your articular cartilage. So then these people have gone on to develop more arthritis than their counterparts that didn’t have the surgery. To be fair though, physiotherapy has also come a long way since then and there are still massive gaps in the quality of physiotherapy nowadays so it is hard for surgeons to really know what goes on in modern, up to date physiotherapy.
On the plus side we know that most meniscus tears heals within 6-8 weeks and commonly a lot of the pain felt is due to other contributing factors such as poor movement strategies, tight muscles and weak muscles both directly at the knee plus all the way down to the foot and all the way up to the back. With comprehensive management of all of these factors, those with knee pain or meniscus injuries can make a great recovery quickly.
