I finally got hold of my teammate who had microfracture on his knee a few years ago. We talked for over an hour and I got an idea of what his take was on the whole injury->surgery->recovery process. It was good to actually talk to someone that I knew that had this done to get an idea of where I stand.
I knew that he had some kind of knee issue that required surgery and a long recovery but I wasn’t sure that it was microfracture. It happened to him during the summer after my junior year of undergraduate while he was a freshman. I remember talking to my coach over the summer about how everyone was doing and he mentioned my teammate as having some kind of major knee issue that had to do with the cartilage. I remember returning to school and practice in the fall and seeing him do his therapy in the athletic training room. Every time I went in there to get some ice or stretch, he was in there on the bike or doing some kind of exercises. There were plenty of times I remember being in there and he wasn’t having a good time or something was hurting and the trainers were telling him to take it easy; that there were good days and bad days. Finally, I don’t remember seeing my teammate doing workouts again until March of my senior year — he started having issues in April or May of the previous year, so it was quite awhile before he was back to training normally again.
I didn’t really think too much of it — when I was healthy and running well I tended to forget about those on the team that were injured. They went to the meetings at the beginning of practice and then I didn’t see them until I was stretching or in the shower. Usually I only really paid attention when someone I ran with regularly on maintenance runs or as part of a workout group suddenly disappeared one day. I would be aware that they were injured for a few runs or workouts and then it would kind of slip my mind as I got used to them not being around. Of course, when I was the one that was injured, which happened at least once per season, I always seemed aware of everyone else that was hurt. We all spent plenty of time in the training room trying to get better. Overall, I spent most of my worrying about trying to stave off or heal my own injuries. It seemed that some tendon or muscle was always about to take me out of the lineup, was in the process of keeping me from running, or trying to blow up again as I restarted training. Of course, once one problem was on its way out, something else was desperately trying to start up.
Unlike me, my teammate said there wasn’t anything that he remembered as the cause of his cartilage defect. His doctor said he probably ran into something, but he didn’t remember doing anything like that. One day he remembered running a steeple race and being fine, and the next day on a long run the pain started. It slowly got worse for awhile as our coach told him the problem was an IT band injury. After a lot of stretching and no improvement he went in to see a doctor at home, which eventually led to his diagnosis.
His defect must have been more weight bearing than mine, as he said that it hurt when he walked, whereas mine didn’t. Like me, my teammate also had a lot of popping and locking in the joint with every leg extension. Before the surgery, his doctor told him that the microfracture-induced fibrocartilage would most likely last about three or four years, enough to get him through his college career, but after that it might break down. My doctor didn’t really say this, but this short-term success seems to be the general assessment on the Internet. He (and my PT) have said that the tissue will break down faster if I return to hard training, so I’m not really inclined to do that.
During the surgery, the doctor had to move my teammate’s patella so that it wouldn’t rub against the microfracture area. The idea was so that bending the knee wouldn’t scrape away the fibrocartilage-forming clot. I was kept in a motion-limiting brace to prevent this from happening for the first couple weeks, but I didn’t have my whole patella adjusted. He said the defect area was about the size of a thumbnail, which seems to be smaller than the area I had that was more like two thumbnails. My teammate said that he didn’t have any pain in the microfracture area after the surgery but he could feel something in there sometimes. Following the surgery, he was on crutches for about five weeks, biking at about two months, and then started running at about five months. It was about seven months before running seemed more normal. He also remarked that his leg strength didn’t come back until nearly a year after the surgery and even today, four years after, the bad leg still seems smaller. He still can’t squat on his bad leg either.
My teammate remarked that I should really focus on abductor and adductor exercises which the PT really has me focus on. It’s one of the things I work on during my morning routine. He remarked on this because he had a lot of tendinitis issues as he returned to running that would have been lessened with more leg strength. Other than that, my teammate made it through the last two and a half years of his college career successfully and wasn’t held back by his knee. His mileage was high and he did all the workouts and raced well. I remember running with him through some of the more treacherous trails around here last year, so I know his knee could definitely tolerate trail running. He still ran 50 miles a week through the summer and is still doing well today. It’s great to hear that his microfracture procedure and recovery were a complete success and it’s a good motivational tool. Since I don’t have to worry about burning eligibility or missing races, I can take it easy during my recovery and not force anything. As I’ve mentioned before, just being able to run again to some degree will make my surgery a complete success.
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