Oddbean

My fear is that my meniscus is in pieces already and those pieces grind against the rest of my joint. Whenever I feel a little something in the knee, I know how to bend it to make it stop but I imagine that's caused by bigger chunks of meniscus while there might be meniscus powder grinding, too, that I won't notice until my cartilage is gone completely.

Honestly man, if you're having trouble, don't do what I did. I waited over 3 years to have a surgeon fix me up. I listened to a dumbass doc who said there was nothing that could be done. Finally went to another doc and got a completely different diagnosis. These docs aren't all superheros. You just have to find the one that will listen. First doc tried gaslighting me and told me nothing could be done for 3 years. Second doctor said it was plain as day after looking at it for 7 minutes. Same fucking MRI images. These guys are guessing. The good ones will listen to your symptoms and treat the patient, not just look at images.

https://image.nostr.build/c0d1df5a3e9d980ecac28f3c309684e189ef6021315b315ed3f53d4bfedd7a71.png If I bend my right knee like that, my meniscus slips into the joint and I can't stand up anymore. I usually can bend my knee to make it slip out again but luckily I managed to avoid the knee-lock thing for years at this point. Avoiding it is sometimes awkward as bending the knee fully is part of many every-day tasks like getting up from sitting on the ground but so far it's manageable.

I tried to manage around the pain and avoided certain activities or suffered for years until my wife decided enough was enough. We found a surgeon who was willing to treat it and so far, I'm happy but I've got some recovery to do yet