MCL tear and maybe meniscus tear???

I was told 2.5 years ago that I had an MCL tear after falling off of a ski lift, no other injury was found on the MRI other than a little bit of chondromalacia which my first doctor (first doctor because I found someone else who listens to me now) was not concerned about.

After my accident, my knee was in a locked position which I found out is not a typical symptom of an MCL tear. I brought this up to my first doctor and asked if I did anything else like tore my meniscus and he told me that you don't tear your MCL and meniscus together. He said that in addition to my MCL tear I would have had to tear my ACL in order to have my meniscus torn. I thought that sounded weird. He just told me that I had a kneecap tracking problem and to ice, do these exercises, and I would be fine.

Well, after a long time (over 2 years) of listening to that advice, my knee still hurts! I saw another doctor and I just had surgery to remove a tumor (right above my knee) that was probably caused by this knee injury 2.5 years ago! So now I have to heal and get my range of motion back before anything else can be done to find out what else is going on.

What are the symptoms of a torn meniscus? I am trying to figure out what else is wrong with my knee because I have A LOT OF PAIN under my kneecap, my knee pops, it hurts to go into a sitting position and hurts to get up from a sitting position. Also, my recent MRI indicates that I have water in my knee. I have a new doctor, but he wants to wait until I recover from my tumor removal surgery before doing anything. I just know that I have some other damage, but since I'm not a professional fo college football player, my injury is not important.

I just want to know what is causing me all of this pain!

Tracking problems are generally resolved by releasing the PCL.
Torn cartilage does not have to be related to an acl tear. I've had tears in mine numerous times and only once was there an ACL problem, in fact it wasn't even tore, the elasticity was gone so they reconstructed it.

Pain from a cartilage tear can really be anywhere in the knee, it depends much upon where the tear is itself. It can of course cause pain under the kneecap. The only way to really know is to have an MRI done and hope that whatever is wrong will appear (MRI's are not 100% accurate)
Surgery to correct a tear is very minimal and is done with a scope. Most individuals bounce back within a few weeks or a month.

"Water on your knee" means that the bursa sac between the joint is filling up with fluids, this occurs when there is an irritation to the joint. There could be the possibility that you have the start of Osteoarthritis. A doctor can easily remove the fluids and place cortisone in the joint to help eleviate swelling but this does not guarantee that it may or may or not come back in the future.

I agree with your new doctor that you should wait until you heal from your current surgery before doing anything with the knee problem now. What I would suggest is that you try using ice on it or even heat when there is no indication of swelling. I would also take it easy and not do anything rigorous that might irritate the knee further.

Best of luck
Barbie

Thanks for your reply.

I don't have a tracking problem right now. The only reason why I ever had a tracking problem in the past was because I had a tumor pushing up on my kneecap. The tumor is what my first doctor neglected to diagnose.

As far as an MRI, I have had 4 of them done! The first one done with the first doctor, the office lost it. So I had another one done and they said nothing really was wrong other than my MCL. However, this was done on a low powered MRI machine (.2 Tesla). My new doctor gave me another MRI because he said that a .2 Tesla MRI does not show enough. So I had my 3rd MRI done a 1.5 Tesla MRI done. The new doctor did a 4th MRI with dye injected for contrast. This is where he saw my huge tumor and focused on that problem right away. However the tumor being removed only helped with the tracking problem that I had. It has not helped with the pain right under my kneecap.

I have been icing and can't do anything rigorous because I can't walk that well because they cut into my quad muscle. My swelling has gone down significantly and I am ready for surgery to FINALLY fix what has made my life miserable for the past 2.5 years! I hate this! I am an athletic and very active person, I used to run 4-6 miles 5-6 days a week as well as play a lot of sports. Now I am depressed, can't do much of anthing active and feel as though I has waited WAY TOO long.

The MRI's that I have had done don't show much other than an MCL tear, water on the knee, and chrondromalacia. Which all of these (according to the doctor) should not be giving me the pain that I describe to them. This is why I think that I need to get my knee scoped so they can finally find the problem that causes my pain.

I am just looking to learn from other people's experiences with meniscus tears, because that is what I think that I may have in addition to the MCL tear. I don't know why my knee locked up (for about 3 weeks), because that is not a symptom of an MCL tear. Why would my knee lock up? I just am so frustrated with this pain!

I'm having surgery this Thursday for a Meniscus Tear. For me, it was all very clear as to how and when it happened. i was just coming in from a good workout of swimming at the gym and was walking up the stairs in my home and as I took a step~I felt a bog POP in my knee on the inner aspect.
The pain was awful the next day and I could barely walk through the market. It took me over a week to get into see a doc and an MRI (thanks managed care) and it was confirmed as a complex medial meniscus tear.
Now I have waited another 2 weeks for the surgey and in the meantime can't do a whole lot. it's very upsetting becuse for a small injury, it really sidelines you. I haven't been able to work out or even swim for fear of it getting worse.
I am praying that surgery later this week will get things all cleaned up and I can be back at the gym very shortly.
Good luck with your knee and take it easy until your surgery!

Hi, I dislocated my knee and tore my mcl acl pcl and partially tore my meniscus. I am not able to get surgery until I can get my knee at a 90 degree angle. I m not sure but have heard that meniscus tears can interupt the ablitly for your knee to glide. I have been stretching and following the therapy now for three months my doctor now tells me he will not do the surgery because it would be pointless, he thinks I cant handle the pain. When infact I have an extremely high pain tolerance but this makes me shake and sweat when bent over an 80 degree angle. What would you do if your doctor said this to you?


BTW I respoded because you can tear your mcl and meniscus because I did!! LMAO..