Recovering From Partial Meniscectomy Surgery

 I thought I would write a little about recovering from Partial Meniscectomy surgery in case anyone would find it useful to hear about the process and give you some ideas of how to stay sane and active during your recovery!

My pain first started after a very normal run one day. I felt good, had no pain I was on very even terrain. When I got home my knee felt very swollen, like it never has before and to the point that I was very concerned about it. At the time I thought I had done something to it but I didn't realise what this extreme swelling was a sign of.

After running for over 40 years now things happen and even I have to accept that things like this might happen. I didn't think it was quite as serious as it was!

I stopped running for a few days and then went on holiday to Cornwall. Walking up and down lots of stairs and coastal paths was very painful but I still thought it was something that would just go away. 

I saw a physio at this point who said there wasn't anything really wrong with my knee and to take some ibuprofen and it would settle. Unfortunately it never did settle and I never ran without pain again from that point onwards.

I focused on doing more strength work for about 6 weeks but still every time I tried to run, there was pain.

It was at that point that I contacted the physio I see at The Centre for Health and Human Performance James Vickers, who has helped me recover from various issues over many years. If you have a lingering lower limb injury he is the man to sort it out for you!

James unfortunately had to give me the bad news that he suspected I had a Meniscus tear, an MRI a few days later in December 2020 confirmed this.

I saw a consultant in early January 2021 and we decided to try 1 month of intensive physiotherapy to see if the tear would heal itself. Sadly it did not and the consultant decided it was appropriate to fix it with surgery via a partial meniscectomy.

For someone who's job is very active and loves to train most days I had to have a really good plan of action for a serious amount of inactivity. I guess there is a benefit to having surgery in a pandemic, there certainly isn't much you feel you are missing out on!

That said not being able to train or even move around a lot is something I find extremely challenging and I know can have a serious impact on my mental health if I don't have a plan of action when I'm out of action!

I spent a lot of time building workouts that I could do with my upper body only and seated and a little standing. Within a few days I could do some core work on my bed and then within a few days I was able to get onto the floor and use weights and bands and bodyweights to increase the amount I could do.

I also put a lot of focus into what I put in my body. So I planned some really nice, nutritious meals and aimed for at least 120g Protein each day and ate lots of fruit and vegetables as well as staying well hydrated. I also had some cake/biscuits or chocolate if I wanted it, the time for dieting and severe restriction is not immediately after surgery.

Your body is working hard to heal, it still needs lots of nutrients and it does not need you to be in a huge calorie deficit. I see this a lot in injured athletes where they aren't as active so they think their body does not need fuelling, it does, simply by not fuelling workouts you'll be eating for recovery.

I was naturally more tired and certainly in the first couple of weeks while I was off work I didn't set an alarm, I let myself have as much sleep as I needed to recover.

I also built a list of all the things I would do while I was resting. I had lectures I wanted to listen to, my favourite podcasts I could listen to, watch things on Netflix I never made time for and read a lot more.

I also wrote some training programmes for my clients that they might need in the future. I designed a beginners 8 week upper body (no knee bending) programme so if anyone I know ever has to modify their workouts I can pass on my programme to them.

I designed a whole new onboarding process for new clients and updated all my paperwork. I was just as busy sitting on the sofa working as I would have been if I was out and about!

I had my surgery on 6th March 2021, all went well and the consultant was happy he had given me the best knee he could, fingers crossed that was a knee that could run for quite a few more years!

My tear was a complex one unfortunately, which means a slower return to everything! Patience is not my strong point so this was going to be tough.

The next 6 weeks I focused on doing my physio diligently, keeping off my feet as much as possible and generally resting and recovering. I also planned 3 workouts a week that would get me a little sweaty and keep me feeling somewhat like myself!

6 weeks into my rehab all was going extremely well and the physio I saw thought I was ready to return to running, sadly I was not! Following this trial came a huge setback. I'm not a fan of blaming people so I told this to the physio I was working with. We are all human and we make mistakes, making someone feel worse isn't going to help anything.

The consultant said to back off everything I was doing until it settled. I then contacted my normal physio to get his help rectifying what had happened.

It's now been 8 weeks since the set back and I only have a teeny bit of pain at times so I think I am making progress. I had to back off the heavy weights James initially wanted me to do and go back to bodyweight as my knee is still not ready to get really strong. Hopefully I will be able to progress to the next stage very soon.

I've had to go through a couple of weeks of icing my knee regularly and James has showed me how to apply K tape to my knee to try to take some of the pressure off the knee. I generally don't move around much outside of going to work at the moment. I've returned to doing my workouts at home until my knee is fully settled and I'm ready to start putting more weight through my knee.

Setbacks after surgery are pretty common but it's certainly not an easy process to go through if you are very active. 

I like to think of myself as a resilient and adaptable person, this is certainly a time that is testing my ability to be that person! I think I'm doing pretty well, there have only been a couple of minor meltdowns! hahaha.

Things I have found really helpful:

1. Have an expert physiotherapist, I am extremely grateful to be under the care of a physiotherapist who knows my body well and is an expert in his field

2. Focus on what you can control, not what you cannot.

3. Find ways to stay active that do not involve bending your knee, trust me there is a lot but make sure you are doing those things at the right stage of recovery so you make good progress

4. Stay connected with people, have some fun, get friends over for a coffee if you can't walk much, it will help to remind you of the fun things you have in your life

5. Work on a couple of projects you don't normally have time for when you are able to move around a lot, it's rewarding and keeps your mind busy so you don't dwell on what you can't do!

6. Speak to those closest to you if you are struggling with being inactive. It's super tough to have all the things you love doing taken away from you, it's perfectly normal to need a little more support and love through the recovery process.

So for now I continue to do my 3 upper body and core workouts, do my physiotherapy exercises and manage any pain by adjusting how much I move around.

I'll post another update about how the next couple of months go and where I am at in my recovery.

Here's to a speedy recovery process xx