Support NeoGAF

[Confrontation]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfracture_surgery

So back in March, I severely injured my ankle during a run through the forest. At the ER and then twice later in the hospital for checkups, they didn't think surgery was necessary and I would make a normal recovery a few months later. As I was already past my expected recovery period in July, I went back to the hospital for a CT scan, echo and all that kind of stuff. Turns out that the cartilage in my ankle is a bit fucked and I now need Microfracture surgery.

Now, as an avid sports fan I often hear and read about athletes having to get those. Quite a few of them never recovered fully, which made me a bit anxious about this opcoming procedure. Of course, even though I do like to play a lot of sports on a regular basis, go for a run or hit the gym, it's pretty silly comparing your own activity to those of professional athletes. That's why I was wondering if people around here had it done to them, how the recovery went and beyond.

Thanks!

 

[Richard Cranium]

Ankle microfracture is a bit different than knee microfracture. Ankle arthritis is also quite a bit better tolerated than knee or hip arthritis. I don't typically use a microfracture awl in the ankle, but I'll do small drill holes into the cartilage defect instead. I do two weeks of splinting and non weight bearing for any ankle scope I do and then an additional 4 weeks of non weight bearing for a microfracture. For a small, isolated osteochondral defect, most people seem to do pretty well. Sometimes the lesion is pretty big and you're better off doing one of the other procedures such as cartilage transport but microfracture and drilling procedures are really simple things to do and Like I said, most people seem to do fine.

The knee is kind of a different story. Many athletes never go back to play, but you never really know how bad the joint was at the time of surgery. I did a knee scope on a college basketball player about 5 months ago. The MRI said she had a meniscus tear, so I went in planning to repair the meniscus if I could. When I got in there, she had a pretty big tear, but she also had a lot of cartilage damage in multiple areas of the knee. I microfractured the one defect I thought would work and left the rest alone, but to me, it looked like something had blown up in her knee. Anyway, she's back practicing with her team and currently pain free, but it wouldn't surprise me if her career ended before she wanted it to. People might say that she didn't recover from microfracture, but from my perspective, her knee was pretty destroyed already and the microfracture was just salvaging what we could.

 

[Confrontation]

Ankle microfracture is a bit different than knee microfracture. Ankle arthritis is also quite a bit better tolerated than knee or hip arthritis. I don't typically use a microfracture awl in the ankle, but I'll do small drill holes into the cartilage defect instead. I do two weeks of splinting and non weight bearing for any ankle scope I do and then an additional 4 weeks of non weight bearing for a microfracture. For a small, isolated osteochondral defect, most people seem to do pretty well. Sometimes the lesion is pretty big and you're better off doing one of the other procedures such as cartilage transport but microfracture and drilling procedures are really simple things to do and Like I said, most people seem to do fine.

The knee is kind of a different story. Many athletes never go back to play, but you never really know how bad the joint was at the time of surgery. I did a knee scope on a college basketball player about 5 months ago. The MRI said she had a meniscus tear, so I went in planning to repair the meniscus if I could. When I got in there, she had a pretty big tear, but she also had a lot of cartilage damage in multiple areas of the knee. I microfractured the one defect I thought would work and left the rest alone, but to me, it looked like something had blown up in her knee. Anyway, she's back practicing with her team and currently pain free, but it wouldn't surprise me if her career ended before she wanted it to. People might say that she didn't recover from microfracture, but from my perspective, her knee was pretty destroyed already and the microfracture was just salvaging what we could.

Thank you for this post, really informative. The lesion shouldn't be too huge I hope, cause I have been walking around and even managing 10 hour workdays where I have to walk around and stand a lot. I just can't do literally anything else. So hopefully I could go back to full strength. Just really dreading the 4 to 6 weeks of doing absolutely nothing.