She's been in pain/discomfort since last November. We've seen two specialists now. The latest said the state of her meniscus was so bad that he would suggest full knee replacement if she were older. Current plan though is to just trim it as it's unlikely to be repaired. The literature out there implies this type of treatment dramatically increases the probability of needing full knee replacement later on.

That's lead me to 2 questions:

1). What the heck? Is our knee replacement therapy still so poor that only the elderly should get it?

2). Has anyone here had success with stem cell injections?

Guess I'm having a hard time accepting that this will be such a major issue for her when we are still pretty young (early 40s).

Trimming is usually a bad idea for the future of the knee. Has she tried rehabbing it?

Where are you located? Stem cell is kind of a crap shoot and expensive. Looked into prolo/PRP?

Yes, she's been doing PT for months. Her last MRI showed significantly more damage than when she first started.

I'm near Los Angeles. I would rather try something like stem cell or prolo before full up surgery.

I would go down the road of prolo/PRP next if therapy isn't really helping. She is in a tricky spot of being so young and nowhere near the age for a knee replacement.

How active is she? What does she want to get back to?

Before all this, she was a gym rat doing CrossFit type training. She wants to get back to running like she used to.

Anything scheduled?

At the end of the month. Found a different doc. Instead of trimming, they'll reattach it to the bone surgically. Sounds like she's in for a fun recovery.

Philip J Fry said:

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At the end of the month. Found a different doc. Instead of trimming, they'll reattach it to the bone surgically. Sounds like she's in for a fun recovery.

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What do they do at the tear? My understanding is certain parts have blood flow and can be stitched while the rest is toast if it tears. Trim/clean it up or love with it.

Philip J Fry said:

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At the end of the month. Found a different doc. Instead of trimming, they'll reattach it to the bone surgically. Sounds like she's in for a fun recovery.

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My 18 year old tore his playing football. They were going to do the reattach with him but when they got in there, they couldn't do it due to where it was. They trimmed his and he was walking without crutches in a couple days. Meniscus is a tough deal due to lack of bloodflow to it. Hope hers works out as planed!

03_Aggie said:

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Philip J Fry said:

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At the end of the month. Found a different doc. Instead of trimming, they'll reattach it to the bone surgically. Sounds like she's in for a fun recovery.

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What do they do at the tear? My understanding is certain parts have blood flow and can be stitched while the rest is toast if it tears. Trim/clean it up or love with it.

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I'll fine out more tomorrow, but if I understand it right, it's been torn completely from the bone. They say they won't know exactly what they can do until they see it during surgery.

Unfortunately, they couldn't repair it. Did a little trimming, but left it mostly intact. What now? How do we avoid arthritis?

Do the rehab and move on. Pretty much all you can do I think.

I tore mine probably 6-8 months after having it cleaned up the first time. Waited about a year and a half and had it cleaned up again.

aggiederelict said:

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Trimming is usually a bad idea for the future of the knee. Has she tried rehabbing it?

Where are you located? Stem cell is kind of a crap shoot and expensive. Looked into prolo/PRP?

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Started looking into prolo before the surgery. Any experience with it? I haven't found any real good sources in it yet.

Your wife may benefit from the MACI procedure. Our patients do very well with it and your wife sounds like the patient population it really is intended for. A younger patient that is really too young for a partial or total knee replacement.

It is pretty expensive but worth exploring and while I am not a clinician my understanding is that the outcomes are much more predictable vs PRP or BMA.