Surgeries and what to expect/ask/consider

businesscats_sl said:

I injured my knee playing hockey 2 years ago pretty badly but never bothered going to a doctor since I had no insurance aside from what the rink offered: you pay to get fixed, we reimburse you. The pain for the first few months was 9/10 and ever since has been a constant 7/10. About a year ago I landed a job with great benefits and have been thinking about going to a doctor and seeing if surgery was the right path. Now January is when my work slows down and was when I wanted to get this done. However, I'm facing a furlough at the start of the year and my insurance runs out after 30 days of not working. Basically, should I even bother with doctor visits if I'll be shit out of luck after January? Yes I can take medical leave while I'm actively employed but it seriously cuts into my income.

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Jesus, get your knee fixed. It's entirely possibly that it's your only meniscus. Unless they try to repair it, which is a six-month recovery a la ACL, you'll be walking comfortably within a few days and back to full sports activity within 4-6 weeks if you do your rehab. If you have any kind of desk job there's no reason you'd have to take more than a couple days off.

I've had four meniscus surgeries and my only regret is waiting so long on the first one that the knee significantly degraded, hurt like a motherfucker all the time, and gave me a lot of trouble day-to-day. As a result, the tear was big enough that they wanted to repair it rather than leave me with zero meniscus at 30. I pulled the trigger a lot earlier on the subsequent injuries and they were pieces of cake. I didn't even need to take pain meds.

tldr; Go see an orthopedist, dumbass.

So, the spoiler code is working. If you have a weak stomach, probably not a good idea to see it.


Bilateral, quadruple compartment fasciotiomy.