" 'The reason to have the surgery is to preserve' other parts of the knee from injury during activity, says Dr. Warren Dunn, an assistant professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at Vanderbilt University who has extensively studied A.C.L. tears. He points out that in The New England Journal of Medicine study, only 8 percent of the patients in the first surgical group subsequently tore a meniscus, a fragile pillow of cartilage that can rip if a knee gives way. Twenty-five percent of those in the physical therapy group eventually tore their meniscuses." http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/phys-ed-how-much-does-knee-surgery-really-help/
Fuck, this is depressing. I tore my lateral meniscus before tearing my ACL and MCL. It was two years before I felt 100% again (one year physically but another year mentally). Now they're saying that the surgery may have been unnecessary?
Every individual has different physical dynamics and forces taking place in their knees. Some people use certain ligaments more than others; some rely on specific tendons or muscles. There are rare people who run fine without the patella, your kneecap! For one person an ACL could provide almost zero additional stability to their particular knee, just based on individual geometry, muscle strength and activities. For another person the ACL may provide so much support that just walking down the street is difficult. Most people are in the middle, they can perform all basic day to day activities fine without an ACL but the ACL prevents unstable potentially knee damaging movements in specific sport situations such as cutting on a basketball court or planting your foot on a climb down a mountain. When you damage your ACL the most successful treatment is to NOT have surgery and adjust your physical activity to a point where the knee does not “give out”. If you want to live a more active lifestyle and want to return to more demanding activities then surgery may be needed or the knee will give out. Each time it gives out there is a potential for more knee damage. I originally tore my ACL playing basketball. I opted not to have surgery and the knee actually felt very good about 6 months later. I had a few times where it gave out over the next couple years and opted to finally get ACL reconstruction. I had to have a third of my damaged meniscus removed which could have potentially been partially or totally prevented if I had the reconstruction immediately following the original injury.
You think I'm spamming this forum with that article? Did you already know all that stuff about a pretty common basketball injury? Well, I guess I shouldn't have bothered...
You're fine Spammy and thanks for posting the article. People just don't know you or about when you worked for the CIA.
