Post Meniscus Recovery - one week out

Well, two weeks ago I inured my knee, tearing my meniscus while working out at the track. A week ago I had a minor surgery to repair the torn medial meniscus. All that was needed was a trim of the tor material. With that I should be able to get back to my usual level of activity fairly quickly. I was prompted to have the surgery rather than wait because my knee was unable to straighten and weight bearing was very painful.

The surgery went great, in and out, and at first, while the nerve block was still active, I had very little pain. I went home and put my leg up, my knee on ice. I pretty much had a good day and went to bed thinking all was well.

Then the nerve block wore off! Oh My God..that was painful!!! So with pain meds on board I spent the next 12 hours sleeping.

But I continued to keep off my leg for the next 3 days and treated my knee with ice and electrical stimulation until I went back to work on Tuesday. Even though I iced and stimmed twice during the day, by the end of the day I was tired and sore. By Wednesday though the pain in my quads was quite severe, and my knee was not very happy. This time I used UltraSound on the scars and The Stick on my muscles, and I made it to Friday.

By Friday, one week out, I was no longer limping, but my ROM still had not returned (swelling) and I still have to remind myself to take NSAID's and take it easy.

Today, I will walk a bit, try a bit of rowing, and generally take it easy with my knee on ice.

The most interesting thing that I learned about this post surgical time is that by day 5, the muscles around the knee are really, really tight and sore and really do well with the Ultrasound.

On Thursday, I found myself at the foot of three flights of stairs in a building that has no elevator. That was the most work my knee had done since surgery and I painlessly managed by climbing slowly, although I was muscularly fatigued my knee swelled up a bit after that. I can see how easy it is to over do things. The leg feels like it can do more and I have to consciously restrain myself from moving too quickly, or stepping up or down with my surgical leg.

I am just happy that I was able to get my knee surgically repaired so quickly after I injured it. I am also lucky that the meniscus trimming is a relatively minor procedure because there is very little bleeding, if any, during the procedure, so the recovery is abbreviated.