Injuries That Affect Your Skiing
- Thread starter ChrisC
- Start date
Following a badly twisted knee in Kühtai mashed potatoes, I'm having an arthroscopic procedure on my meniscus this Friday. Same deal with me -- walking down one stair and I'm screaming and/or my knee buckles.
snowbird surfer
Member
As I posted in another thread, spinning can be very effective for recovery from meniscal injuries. At 6 weeks, most acute injuries look similar with/without surgery if properly managed/rehabilitated. I skied for a season through a lateral meniscus tear with 30-45 minutes daily spinning in zone 1/2. Some specific tears are best managed with surgery or repair (which requires 4-6 weeks of non weight bearing - yikes) but for the vast majority, time + improved blood flow and conditioning are at least as good as partial meniscectomy. Good luck!
jimk
Well-known member
I'm having more arthritis-like pain in my back and hips and this summer it has shut down my golf game at times. Could be old age, but the doc has upped my daily dose of atorvastatin in a big way over the last year. My cholesterol numbers are down, but mystery pain up. Will see him in about a month and talk about this.
Good luck to all of you getting fixes.
Good luck to all of you getting fixes.
My left knee meniscus was shown partly torn in an MRI in 1995. The right one was shown torn this April after my Zermatt incident, but it likely started when I was in Canada in February.
Do not be too hasty in ascribing pain to the meniscus or having surgery on it. Liz had a torn meniscus also but the doc said the pain was due to her arthritis under the kneecap. She eventually developed bone spurs and needed the 2023 knee replacement. Same doc said my knee pain was from a bone bruise not the meniscus. The PT I'm going to now actually recommends deep knee squats, which promote blood flow to the meniscus and might slow down further deterioration.
If ChrisC is even considering a knee brace, he needs to get an MRI to determine what is happening. We think of meniscus tears as an acute injury, but my doc said no it can be gradual as the right one was for me and maybe that's what's happening with ChrisC.
I do not have pain walking down stairs. Pain can be induced by having lateral force on the right knee when it is bent 90+ degrees. I'll be a bit uncomfortable when I wake up if I slept in a bad position but that goes away after I'm up for awhile.
If I step down with my left foot, bending the right knee and then retracting the left foot back up, I can occasionally have low level pain. This is another PT exercise, which they think will build up the knee, and any pain I get from that exercise is now less than it was a couple of months ago.
I 100% agree with snowbird surfer's approach, though I've not done it on a bike. I sometimes use elliptical machines in the gym, but for the past 6 months I've been using my pool. My usual 800 vertical hill climb a block from my house should resume this fall but since Spain it's been too hot.
Do not be too hasty in ascribing pain to the meniscus or having surgery on it. Liz had a torn meniscus also but the doc said the pain was due to her arthritis under the kneecap. She eventually developed bone spurs and needed the 2023 knee replacement. Same doc said my knee pain was from a bone bruise not the meniscus. The PT I'm going to now actually recommends deep knee squats, which promote blood flow to the meniscus and might slow down further deterioration.
YMMV but knee braces are for stability. The Zermatt doc gave me one precautionary as without an MRI he didn't know whether I had strained the MCL. My April MRI showed all right knee ligaments normal, and the SoCal doc Liz and I use said that knee braces are for strained ligaments and surgery recoveries and would be irrelevant for my situation.
If ChrisC is even considering a knee brace, he needs to get an MRI to determine what is happening. We think of meniscus tears as an acute injury, but my doc said no it can be gradual as the right one was for me and maybe that's what's happening with ChrisC.
I do not have pain walking down stairs. Pain can be induced by having lateral force on the right knee when it is bent 90+ degrees. I'll be a bit uncomfortable when I wake up if I slept in a bad position but that goes away after I'm up for awhile.
If I step down with my left foot, bending the right knee and then retracting the left foot back up, I can occasionally have low level pain. This is another PT exercise, which they think will build up the knee, and any pain I get from that exercise is now less than it was a couple of months ago.
I 100% agree with snowbird surfer's approach, though I've not done it on a bike. I sometimes use elliptical machines in the gym, but for the past 6 months I've been using my pool. My usual 800 vertical hill climb a block from my house should resume this fall but since Spain it's been too hot.
When I was first prescribed statins, I insisted on minimum dose which is 5mg. That reduced my cholesterol enough for 5 years. A year ago it got upped to 10mg. Liz got statins prescribed for the first time last week and has also requested 5mg. If they want to start you at 20mg, tell them to start low and find out the minimum that works.
I too have worn and torn meniscus in both knees but the orthopaedic surgeon advised me to “manage it” instead of surgery. She suggested limiting running to once a week and to keep it less than 6 miles at a time. The pain level increases and decreases regularly for unknown reasons.
She also insisted weight training to keep muscle around the knee and daily walking to keep the knee ‘loose’.
She also insisted weight training to keep muscle around the knee and daily walking to keep the knee ‘loose’.
Working with a physical therapist or a personal trainer to learn exercises relevant for supporting knees is well worth the effort. My intense knee rehab period was in 2012 after blowing an ACL (not skiing), July-December. Learned how to strengthen abductors, adductors, and hamstrings in assorted ways. I opted not to have ACL reconstruction surgery since the knee involved was quite tight. My surgeon agreed with the decision given what I wanted to continue doing. The collateral damage to the meniscus was in the red-red zone and could heal without medical intervention. By the time I finished PT, I wasn't having any pain due to the menius or slightly strained MCL.
When I asked the surgeon about a custom knee brace, he noted that it was only prevent hyper-extension and left the decision up to me.. I opted to invest money and time in lessons instead of a knee brace. Especially after I learned during that first winter that one of the Massanutten instructors didn't have an ACL and threw away the brace after a month. Turned out that his full-time job was in physical therapy. I was an adventurous intermediate back then.
When I asked the surgeon about a custom knee brace, he noted that it was only prevent hyper-extension and left the decision up to me.. I opted to invest money and time in lessons instead of a knee brace. Especially after I learned during that first winter that one of the Massanutten instructors didn't have an ACL and threw away the brace after a month. Turned out that his full-time job was in physical therapy. I was an adventurous intermediate back then.
The KOOS score can be useful to tell if things are getting worse, better, or staying the same; range for healthy adults with no knee problems is 70-100. Once my score got over 90, I was completely confident about being more active in the long run. After the first few weeks of PT, my score was about 75. There were actions I was avoiding so I would see how the score would change from one extreme to the other for those actions. I've been at around 95 starting six months after injury. According to Google AI, people 70-79 typically have scores well below 90. Even for 60-69 only those who are "exceptionally active and has zero lifetime history of joint trauma" score 92+.
orthotoolkit.com
Free Online KOOS Score Calculator - OrthoToolKit
My score is 88, would have been mid 90s before this ski season. Liz scores lower because the replaced knee has limited bending range of motion max~115 degrees but in terms of activities she is at least as good as I am.
snowbird surfer
Member
Some braces can unload the knee compartment (lateral or medial) and reduce OA pain, but they do not prevent injury. Far better to train proprioception. Consider downloading RIIP Reps from the App Store. It is an evidence based neuromuscular training program that restores propreoception. It was developed to complement modern acl injury prevention programs. I use it both in and out of season to maintain body awareness, explosive movement and control. In season it functions as an effective warmup before hitting the slopes.
As for backs, I highly recommend foundation training, a multifidi conditioning system. Nearly all LBP protocols focus on “core” but miss the multifidi, the spine’s most important stabilizers. You can pick up the foundation training book to learn more or find content including the original 12 minute video on YouTube. Personally recommended as treatment and preventative medicine.
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I'm recovering from yesterday's meniscus procedure. Maybe we're talking about different things? A "loose knee" (pain + cracking + the unnerving feeling of the knee moving horizontally to and fro: gah!) is what convinced me to have the surgery.
Sorry. I mean supple. My knees don’t move horizontally but they do give me pain and they clunk and grind.
Good luck with the recovery.