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OTJ meniscal tear


rat115

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I forgot you're in a mountainous area. Bad weather is usually in lower pressure systems, and swelling from that lower pressure can cause pain. Best speak with your ortho doc on that.

I live just above sea level, possibly at the magnificent altitude of 10 foot.

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Meniscus tears suck... I'm putting off an MRI for my knee to rule out one from hockey... As far as altitude goes I know what you're talking about. As you know I've had most of my surgeries in Vail and live in Denver... so driving back into the mountains for the follow ups kills. The swelling increases and pain increases. My surgeon said it was a common complaint post-op for his patients who don't live in the mountains and it's probably the change in the altitude and changes in pressures.

Good luck with your knee and let me know if I can do anything to help!

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I saw the ortho last week. I'll be going in for arthroscopic surgery on the 19th in the Denver area.

Richard, I'm on the plains, but I'm about 2.5 hrs out from Denver & Colorado Springs.

I talked to the doc about the pain. He said it's normal with the injury. He told me to start some small exercises to start strengthening the knee before the surgery. He thinks that I'll be back on the rig 2 weeks after the surgery. My director said to plan a month (this doc did his rotator cuff surgery a couple of years ago). I'll definitely wait to see how things are going and where I am in rehab before I'll jump back on the rigs.

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He thinks that I'll be back on the rig 2 weeks after the surgery. My director said to plan a month

2 weeks? one month? I was off my feet for 3 days, by direction, and wearing the brace for 2 months before I went back to work on a paper pushing, modified duty. I wasn't cleared to return to the ambulances for about 6 months! By then, my "cert" had expired, but was able to get into a refresher class quite quickly, and was back in the ambulance 16 months following the date of the injury.

Either the surgery has improved to need less recovery time, my doctors were overly cautious, or someone messed with me. In your case, I'll hope the surgical methods improved between my injury in 1997, and today.

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I think this doc tends to be a bit overly optimistic where the EMS field is concerned. The EMS director ended up with a rotator cuff tear (LODI) and he said that this doc expected to have him back on the job in about half the time it took.

Remember, I'm on a compensated volly service with about 10 people taking call. There is only 1 "paper pushing" job on the service, and it's definitely not mine. It stinks since I can't work the ambo until I'm released by the doc.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just wanted to update.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I had surgery 2 weeks ago today. Turned out that I didn't tear the meniscus. I tore the cartilage on the end of the femur and back of the knee cap. Doc had to go clean out the joint and behind the knee cap and smooth both down to prevent re-injury. Stitches came out today and the GP liked the look of the knee. I go back to the ortho tomorrow, and I'll talk to him about PT to help strengthen it before I'm back on the amb since my boss isn't comfortable with me coming back without some rehab and strengthening after being down for as long as I've been.

Things went well. The knee definitely didn't start hurting and swelling with the storm that came through this week. I'm a happy camper for now.

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