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| January 17, 2010 | | Dont confuse me with a conservative person | | A burger today is better than two tomorrow. I am a definitely an all in kind of guy and I want it now. However, as it pertains to running I am just going to have to WAIT. And I hate WAITING for anything. I met with Dr. Lee again this week and here is the skinny.
Due to the location of the injuries and the likely outcomes of surgery we are going to take a CONSERVATIVE approach.
The meniscus tear is usually a straightforward nip and tuck. However, as with all my injuries this is just not the case. I have a radial tear and these are not great candidates for removal. These are almost always sewn together. However, due to the location and the volume of activity that I do Dr. Lee believes that such intervention has less than a 50% chance of holding and thus working. Accordingly, we are going to pass on that one.
The most serious injury that I have is a tear the the articuar cartlige. This cartlige sits on the end of the bone and does not regenerate. I have a small crack on the surface and in addition I have torn the catliage from the bone also -this is called delamination. The procedure to fix this is called microfracture. Essentially, a procedure where small holes are drilled into the injury causing a nasty substance to leak out - it becomes pseudo cartliage. In a study of elite soccer players undergoing this procedure 47% returned to sport and 20% returned to their previous ability. I am not 20 years old hence my chances are far less than those in the study.
So what to do? CONSERVATIVE.
Here is the plan:
1. An intensive weight training implementation to cause my quad to handle more of the load than it currently is handling. The idea being that we can create a bit of a safe haven for the joint.
2. A CONSERVATIVE approach to the return to running. We will do this with the ALTER G machine. It is an amazing piece of equipment - I will blog on this next week.
3. A major focus on cycling. The idea being to create more strength through cross training and finally;
4. An expermental application of PROLOTHERAPY
First, it is important to understand what the word prolotherapy itself means. "Prolo" is short for proliferation, because the treatment causes the proliferation of new tissue in areas where it has become weak.
Among other things, Prolotherapy uses a dextrose (sugar water) solution, which is injected into the injured joint. This causes a localized inflammation in these weak areas which then increases the blood supply and flow of nutrients and stimulates the tissue to repair itself.
Historical review shows that a version of this technique was first used by Hippocrates on soldiers with dislocated, torn shoulder joints. He would stick a hot poker into the joint, and it would then miraculously heal normally. Of course, they don’t use hot pokers today, but the principle is similar—get the body to repair itself, an innate ability that the body has.
How long will it take to complete a course of treatments? Who knows. I plan on undergoing this treatment for up to a year.
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