A snippet of my knee injuries. FWIW, this all started in the early 90's so hopefully things have gotten better. Over about a 12 hear span I had accumulated knee whose severity I was unaware of and just worked through. When my Olympic competition days came to an end and my workout/training schedule slowed down my knee pain got worse to the point I was set up for arthroscopy. I said I was too busy to do them one at a time and my Doc said sure no problem so both knees were done in the same surgery. I was still in very good shape and went in and out of the hospital in the same day no problems. Here is where things went off the rails somewhat. Because of my own ignorance about the differences, a regular Ortho did my surgery not a sports focused Ortho. I guess the doc never asked nor did I ever say something like "I teach classes almost everyday, I work a fulltime job, and fulltime farm so I will be up on my feet working tomorrow. Because of this my knees got pretty big with fluid and inflammation and even blood pooled in some really bizarre wayss. I called my Ortho the 4 days after surgery and told him what I was seeing. Honestly, he did not believe me and tried to schedule me in 2 weeks later. This is where I knew "something was amiss at the circle K". I got pissed and unloaded. He countered claiming he had been given misleading lifestyle information. This put a lot of things in motion. The next day my wife (an attorney) went to the doctors office and got copies of everything. Under counsel (I'm always under counsel) I went to Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville to a sports ER. At first they treated for the fluid and inflammation and tried to prescribe meds. I never took pain medicine for surgery or all the post surgery stuff. An appointment was made with a great doctor by the name of Pinky Lipscomb, part of the David Lipscomb University family. He was a little older and had zero bedside manner. He quickly told me I was stupid for using the wrong kind of doctor, along with the many other mistakes I had made. We eventually established a Repore and made a plan.
The long and short, I had zero understanding of the damage of inflammation and the ease at which arthroscopic tears can be damaged. I ended with 1" tears in my right knee. Six days after the first surgery Pinky went via regular surgery and repaired the tears, scraped the patella and put me on a heavy round of anti-inflammatories. I still refused to take pain meds so the regular surgery was rough. The worst part for me was having to stay bed-ridden for 7 days. Cruel and inhuman punishment for an active person.
One of the last things Doctor Lipscomb told me was that I would end up with arthritis in my knee. He stressed that this is one of the untold negatives to arthroscopic knee surgery. Even though larger tears can be repaired and debris can be removed, this type of surgery most often ends up leaving very small tears in the cartilage.
My knees done very good up until the late 90's. I could still do anything I wanted to do but arthritis pain was setting in. Deep squats and lifts hurt.
I pray this is not your scenario and I urge you to have a LONG conversation with your doctor especially regarding what you should NOT do post-op.
Best wishes and let us know how it goes.
