On July 25th, 2007 I underwent microfracture surgery on my right knee. This page is an overview of my journey through microfracture surgery and the recovery.
Blog Timeline of Microfracture Surgery
My recovery timeline can be found here. It was during my recovery from the microfracture surgery that I initially put this blog together.
Background
In the fall of 2006 I knew something was wrong in my right knee. I tried physical therapy, but I couldn’t get my body back to the point where I could ride my bike again.
Diagnosis for Microfracture Surgery
Once I finally had the MRI, it was clear that I had cartilage problems. Microfracture surgery is about helping to repair cartilage problems for bone on bone scenarios. Typically, the bones use a padding of cartilage to help the joints. I was missing some key cartilage.
Thus, I was a microfracture candidate.
Once Dr. Behr got inside to look, you can see the damage clearly.
Microfracture Surgery
Microfracture surgery is a relatively new procedure. At the time of my surgery, there were three options. Now, years later, microfracture has shown to be very successful with a relatively short recovery time line.
Here are some links I used during my research.
- The Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfracture_surgery
- The originators of the procedure: http://www.steadman-hawkins.com/knee_microfracture/overview.asp
- An internet forum: http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php?board=31.0
The surgery was successful, but it did go a little long. Read the details here.
My Recovery from Microfracture Surgery
I’m updating this close to 6 years after my microfracture surgery. I’ll say I’m recovered and doing well. Unfortunately I hurt my back, but that is a different story. I’ve managed to complete an organized century on my bike and covered over 5,000km of riding in 2012. Here are some links to posts I made about my progress. It was indeed a long road back.
- The beginning
- 6 Weeks and beginning to walk
- 8 Weeks (note on recovery)
- 11 Weeks – Continued progress
- 18 Weeks – Better, but slow progress
- 5 Months –
- 6 Months –
- 10 Months – Mostly good days
- 1 Year – Much improved with some lingering pain
- 3 Year update – Life is back to normal
- 5 Years – knee is still doing well
- September 2013 – I rode an organized century proving my knee is strong and well.
Thanks for your blog. I’m in my 11th month post surgery and tracking about the same as you.
Hi mark,
I guess we are all here with bad knees ! I am 5 months post op microfracture. How do u feel by now? Do you see any improvement? Hope yr knee feels great again
I’m kind of glad that they are still doing microfracture. For me, it has been… a long time. I’ve been pretty good, but I have episodes where I’m out of action for a while. I do a lot of walking, some cycling and surf a bit. All use the knee a bit differently. My main knee issues come from the meniscus area and lead do a period of swelling. The swelling can last weeks or more, but that is less and less as I’m trying to loose weight and build up a more rounded set of exercises.
I’m in a condition similar to where you were. I have a 18 foot Bayrunner and just purchased a Defiance Tiderunner 18 foot boat.
I’d like very much to discuss with you how your new boat performs and what improvements might have been put on your boat.
With our boat we have a heck of a time running at a relatively constant speed on the ocean. We seem to gain to much speed then throttle back and then slow down until we are just plowing the water. Give it a bit more throttle and pretty soon we are going way to fast again.
Thanks,
Don Libby