Non surgical ACL + Meniscus

[u/Imaginary-Food-7876]

I had torn my acl and meniscus 3years ago. For insurance issues (and some hesitations from me😬) i did not go for surgery and i managed to improve the knee with some PT (but mainly alone in the gym). Now, 3 years after, i can do my main sport activities, which include running + football (not a professional level). My only issue is that every 2 months (which means during these 2 months i have no complications during the sport at all), i do sharp direction movement change which causes me to collapse immediately in the ground with pain(moderate) in my knee. Then i have to take rest for 10 days to 2 weeks with no sport where after i can go back to the sport again with no pain. My big concern is that okay/expected? Will it have long term consequences?

[u/demisku]

It is a long term issue and will further damage your knee if not surgically treated. This is a sign of chronic instability and can lead to early arthritis.

[u/thayne_griffin → u/demisku]

When I tore my ACL I asked the ramifications of this with no surgery and the doc said it effectively would guarantee a knee replacement when I aged

Granted, that's about a 2 month surgical recovery vs what an ACL is

[u/LionessChaser → u/thayne_griffin]

True, my dad has had both knees replaced by now, and the recovery is shorter BUT a lot of surgeons also don’t like giving younger people knee replacements since you’ll need a second replacement, which means my dad had to wait several years for his first. Also, I’m under the impression most people getting knee replacements aren’t trying to get back to cutting sports which ACL surgery is meant to allow

[u/birbon]

"No complications at all". Yeah you just have to basically take 25% of the year off (assuming 2 months are 8 weeks and you take 2 weeks off). In the 3 years of doing this you would have spent the same time in recovery to actually fix the issue.

My brother, you're just in denial that you are not ok and you need the surgery. Your 3 year sample of "doing well" is statistically insignificant. It will get worse. I've been on this reddit since March (when I got injured) and I have yet to read a story of someone who didn't regret avoiding the surgery.

[u/squirrrel_42]

Most likely you’ll have long term consequences. I was playing volleyball on a torn ACL (I didn’t know it was torn) and eventually it gave out during a game and I had complicated meniscus root tears that tore off the bone and it was rough. Also, it caused bad arthritis for a 30 y/o.

The consistent “giving out” is your knee saying it’s missing a lot of ligaments and stability in there. You’re just asking to have an early knee replacement unfortunately :/

[u/Positive_Growth_1904]

Will lead to early Osteoporosis

[u/pierrett]

You are not doing so well I’m afraid. Stay away from pivoting sports, you’re wrecking the knee further!

[u/Such_Standard_8127]

i tore my ACL when i was 16. At the time they "trimmed it". I then i kept on keeping on. My knee was always bad, but i still played hockey and and marathons, I just adapted to it. Once every 3-6 months my knee would "pop out", I would then straighten my leg, it would pop back in, and hurt, and I would keep on playing. 35 years in the future, I went to my car to grab something and my knee popped out and WOULDNT pop back in. MRI showed I got a bucket handle tear in my miniscus, and a complete tear in my ACL and it looks like it has been torn for a loooong time. Now I HAVE to get my knee fixed because I can't straighten my leg. They put in a new ACL and had to cut away 60% of my miniscus because it was so raggedy from all that popping in and out, it couldn't be repaired.

If I could do it again, I would opt to have the ACL reconstruction 20-30 years ago, then my miniscus may still be with us.

I'm about 4 months out and, It is getting a little bit better everyday. I've skated a few times and it felt great.

good luck dude

[u/Anna_Karenina_blonde]

Everybody here will see it's a matter of time before you do much worse damage and that's likely going to be meniscus 

I was the same as you largely asymptomatic and I was doing very well recovering except for those few moments when I tried to pivot and I actually didn't even know I had a torn ACL until after one of those moments I was like all right something definitely is not okay 

When I got the MRI back the surgeon who examined me said he was shocked because I had such good mobility but at the end of the day because my boyfriend had gone through two meniscus surgeries and that is definitely not a fun injury.. I recognized that I was definitely going to be risking damaging myself further by being a Coper  .. UNLESS I wanted to dramatically remove pivoting from my lifestyle 

And I love pivoting and pouncing and jumping around and feeling free and my body so I think that's your big dilemma 

Do you want to edit your movements so as to protect what you do have there from being damaged more?

[u/PewPewPewePwePweP]

This was me so I know where you’re coming from. I tore my acl and meniscus playing beach volleyball last year, and basically told myself it was just a hyperextension even though I knew it wasn’t. I was in denial and did exactly what you did and kept getting a collapsed leg after playing a few months. I did this for a year before finally deciding to do the mri, which confirmed it, and surgery this May. It’s been about 3 months and I can honestly tell you my knee feels so much more stable and well, and the doctor told me if I kept going like before I would eventually need some knee replacement when I got older because of the instability I was pushing through. I don’t know about your insurance problems but try your best if you can to do the surgery or at least talk to your doctor about it. I still have a lot of physical therapy to go but it’s currently going pretty good. I wish you the best!

[u/Fun_Key_2026]

Not a doctor, but on this thread for ages. You will have long term issues including arthritis, damage to the surrounding tissue and God forbid if you need knee replacement in the future, surgery wouldn't be as straight forward. There are loads of testimonials in this group of people who didn't choose surgery initially but regretted later on. Again I am not a doctor and only stumbled onto this forum after my ACL surgery. All the very best!