<p>If I were having one knee done, I would definitely have the other done at the same time if that is allowed/recommended. My DD had knee surgery and after having one done decided it had not improved things enough to merit doing the other knee. At least not enough to go through months of PT again, for her it was being out of commission that drove her crazy.</p>
<p>They will likely not repair the meniscus–at our age they just lop off the torn part. (ACL without meniscus repair is 1-2 weeks on crutches; with meniscus repair it’s 6 weeks on crutches. DS had his meniscal tears repaired after both surgeries. Neither DH nor I did.) And if she can’t straighten her leg, she isn’t ready for ACL surgery. She needs to be able to get the knee straight before that can be done. She’ll likely need PT before having surgery.</p>
<p>yikes MyLB - she has been in PT for awhile now. PT put her on crutches so she could get the leg straight without putting weight on it. I believe (I better get the details now) that she can’t keep it straight when she has weight on it but has no problem keeping it straight without full weight. Her doc was talking as if the surgery could be done within the next month. I wonder if straightening it at all is what makes them talk about surgery now?</p>
<p>Yes, good way to put it, they plan to lop off the torn part of the meniscus. I think she is adjusting to the fact that she really needs to do the acl but now the question will be whether to do both knees.</p>
<p>I really appreciate your input especially about donor ligament - I forgot what it is called, allo something. She was thinking about it more in terms of the risks - but I think those may be very slim -than the ease of recovery at our age.</p>
<p>If she can get it straight she should be good to go. (I could not get my knee straight after the initial injury.) (Of course I waited six weeks to see a doctor–bad idea!) It’s an allograft (vs. autograft, which is your own tissue), also referred to as a cadaver graft. Re: risks–not sure what your sis is thinking but I can tell you that both DH and I did extensive research back when we had ours done and I think there was one case back in the 90s of someone having an issue with the cadaver graft, and that was before all of this double-triple-whatever sterilization. </p>
<p>Re: doing both at once, I don’t know what’s going on with the other knee and I’m sure her doc has an opinion, but I’d be tempted to have the worse knee done first, let her “good” leg help in the recovery, then have the other one done if she has to. Again, the recovery/rehab from the allograft ACL surgery was not fun but really not that bad. Many people are down to one crutch within a week. The worst pain I had during the whole thing was from swelling in my ankle the first few days post-op.</p>
<p>It could be the torn meniscus that is preventing full knee extension. I have seen cases where they did not find out that the meniscus was torn until they got in there and that’s when they realized why they couldn’t straighten the knee fully.</p>
<p>Also, I had a patient a year ago have the allograft done and ended up getting an infection. 4 surgeries and 8 days in hospital later, he remains out of soccer at 13 months post-injury…</p>
<p>sounds very painful to go around for 6 weeks on an injured knee MyLB! I think that its looking like she wouldn’t want to do both knees at once and may be considering biding some time and trying to avoid the surgery altogether. She needs to be able to put some weight on it first - so that is where she is concentrating her energy on now - plus digesting all the great info from this thread.</p>
<p>hops_scout - that is just the type of thing that is making her nervous about the allograft and even the surgery - someone she knows had trouble with the screws coming out. </p>
<p>In her case they do know the meniscus is torn - that is extremely interesting that that might be what is preventing the full knee extension. She is going to have that surgery for sure. The one she is on the fence about is the acl. I wonder if seeing ‘how things go’ after the meniscus repair is the way to go?</p>
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<p>I would be surprised if the doctor would do that. And I wouldn’t want to do that as a patient. It’s normal for them to do both operations at the same time; do them both while they are in there. It’d be much more expensive and time-intensive to do them separately…</p>
<p>oh good point!</p>
<p>Emeraldkity, I believe there are other ways to fix cartilage in a knee. I know doctors were trying to grow cartilage in knees over 10 years ago.</p>