Running After Knee Mosaicplasty, OATS, and Meniscectomy

I'm one day post surgery now. It seemed to go well. Since this was an arthroscopic procedure I had a lot less bleeding and swelling this time and was able to restart PT exercises this morning. The orthopedic surgeon (OS) seemed to be pretty positive on how it went. He said he removed a substantial amount of inflamed tissue. He also said the osteochondral grafts (from the last surgery) look great. Kneecap mobility should be improved (and seems to be…although I didn’t push on it too hard today since I have a couple of holes right under my kneecap). The OS also did the patellar release, resected the scarred fat pad, and did some smoothing of patellar and trochlear cartilage. I used 2 crutches to get around yesterday after the surgery, but I've already weened myself to a single crutch. Looks like I'll be back to crutch-free walking this week. I also should be able to return to weightlifting later this week as well. Hopefully I'll be able to resume my recovery path back to r

After visiting my orthopedic surgeon (OS), I have agreed to his recommendation to have another procedure. There are several goals of the procedure…including removing inflamed synovial tissue, cleaning up adhesions, and releasing my kneecap (which lacks mobility even though I have been working on that for months during physical therapy). He is confident that this will point me in the right direction. As I expressed in my previous post, I’m wary about having another surgery to fix the first surgery. I was very overreactive to the first surgery…won’t I be for the second one? Well, I think this approach has its risks, but I’ve not made much progress for 6 months, so it is time for a change. The procedure will be an arthroscopic surgery that should take only 20 minutes or so. I’m scheduled to do this on June 28. I am so not looking forward to being on crutches, medications, and a cryotherapy machine, but I’m going to have to grind it out. I am going to go into NYC once a week and work with

There is not too much progress to report here. The synovitis and associated stiffness and swelling of my right knee are still there full force. I’ve improved my strength on a few individual exercises (most notably “mini-extensions” of the right knee), but I’ve had a few setbacks where I had to drop or change an exercise that was causing too much swelling. I’ve had periods where I have felt really down about my lack of progress (especially on the 6-month anniversary of my surgery). At 6 months the goal was to return to full activity...but I can't even walk that well yet. I can't do stairs. I can't drive. I’ve wondered (or rather worried) where this is going and how it will end. I did make one change to my routine that has lifted my spirits a little bit…I’ve started doing some weightlifting and core exercises every other day. It feels good to be in strengthening/building mode instead of lying-on-the-couch-gaining-weight mode. The one thing I have not tried since I started phy