Is Harold Landry done in NE?

[OldEngland]

Cartilage often does not heal quickly if at all. Blood circulation in such connective tissue is limited and so therefore is the rate and certainty of healing. Years ago I tore a meniscus cross country skiing. This was before arthroscopic procedures. They wanted to remove the meniscus entirely, the standard procedure back then. I said no thanks. They told me I could try just using it, starting out with crutches, then a cane and so forth. They said it might or might not work, but that increased blood flow from exercise could make the difference. I got up to walking miles every day. It took two years to get it back. BUT, I wasn't trying to play football, just trying to get back to hiking and working (I worked in the woods on a thousand-acre lot devoted to sugaring and logging. I loved my job.)

Perhaps none of this is relevant given all the new modalities of treatment, and perhaps his probem is more with ligaments, but whenever I see talk of knees "healing," I think, "maybe yes and maybe no; and be prepared to put in a lot of time." These days, I have little cartilage ("joint space") left, but I do pretty well, still can put in a day's work. The doctor tells me that some people can do fine with little or no joint space while others just get too much pain, and that there's really no way to know in advance how any particular person will do.

You made a great decision. There was a period in the nfl where they removed the meniscus entirely for lots of players. It got players back really quickly, but was a disaster. Without the shock absorber, arthritic degenerative changes accelerated massively, it shortened careers exponentially and they all had to have premature knee replacements (which isn't great as they only last 15-20 years and putting a second joint replacement in has a much lower success rate).

For us normal people where meniscus tears are not flicking back and blocking the joint, they prefer to just completely leave them alone now (no surgery to remove bits), to keep as much of the all the shock absorbtion qualities as possible, and just rehab the muscles. I imagine the logging was the perfect exercise to strength everything.

 

[n1997y]

He isn’t bone on bone. Bone on bone requires a knee replacement and you can barely walk.

Untrue. I’ve had two knees bone on bone. Both were replaced at my request, not because I could barely walk but because it wasn’t fun walking and it wasn’t getting better.

I could’ve not gotten replacements and kept walking on the originals. It just would’ve sucked. It wasn’t a big change in functionality, it was entirely a matter of discomfort and pain tolerance.

Back in the day I played on worse.

 

[n1997y]

I mean, he'll probably end up getting that knee replacement Andy was talking about.

I’m wondering when we will see a pro athlete return to play after a joint replacement.

My orthopedic surgeon has told me it’s okay if I want to go downhill skiing on my two replacement knees.

He did tell me to avoid snowboarding because of the torque involved. I could’ve kept walking see pro athletes ignoring that.