Aug. 12、2022
One of many great benefits of having the ability to understand English is that you have free access to some of the latest medical articles. If you don't have this ability, you usually need to wait for them to be translated into your own language. That often takes one to two years. Or often times, some are simply not translated at all. While waiting for a translation, by the way, you are only exposed to medical information that has not been updated.
For example, in the field of knee injuries and their treatment, it is largely taken for granted that your cartilage doesn't regenerate itself once it is damaged. Most medical narratives say that there are no blood vessels running in knee joints (which is true by the way), and they often cite it as if to say that full recovery is beyond hope.
However, reality shows that athletes who were once tormented with pain as a result of knee injury will often become pain-free after months after months of rehabilitative effort. If fact, I am one of those who once almost lost hope for recovery but who has recovered to a decent level. I jogged for 30 to 40 minutes two days in a row in bare feet on grass, and I went out for a 30 + K bike ride the following night. The following morning there was no iffy feeling in the knee once injured.
Had I completely accepted the "knee joints won't regenerate because there is no blood stream there" mantra, I would not have recovered this much, because I would have simply abandoned hope for recovery, and settled for a crippled version of myself.
I did not, however, lose hope. Two videos helped me. I would like to write about them one by one.
In this video physio-therapist Maryke plainly explains the mechanics of meniscus discs and how injuries occur. The most significant take-away from this video to me is that pain eventually calms down fully, and you can function fully even if you continue to have a tear in your meniscus disc. This is a scientifically proven fact. It has also been repeatedly observed in physio-therapeutic practices.
The fact that full functionality can be regained regardless of existence of tear is enough for me to move forward. But just in case you may be so hung up with whether a tear will heal or not, I would like to draw your attention some intriguing medical practice. At orthopedic clinics, they MRI-scan you to diagnose 'a meniscus tear'. However, they almost never MRI-scan you again after pain calms down. So even when you get better, you will never know whether it is because the teared tissued have brought together or not. Why do docs not MR-scan you when pain calms down just to make sure that a tear has been healed? I assume that most likely a tear is often or sometimes still there. But suppose that pain is absent even when the tear remains, a funny question arises: Wasn't the tear the cause of the pain??? I will leave readers to answer the question.
I suggest you stop worrying all together about whether the tear has healed or not. I suggest you accept a structural abnormality such as a tear as simply a typical manifestation of degeneration resulting from ageing and that you live with it!!
Now that you know that you can recover pain-free athletic life whether or not a tear heals, the next step is learning how. While Maryke does show you some specific rehabilitative techniques, and also teaches you the most fundamental lesson that different activities are recommended depending of your recovery stages, her advice is mainly focused on initial stages of recovery. And therefore, for those who want more advanced rehab efforts needed in late stages of recovery, we need to turn to another video.
"Knee Meniscus Tear Test and Exercises for Full Recovery" is a great video.
In this video Eric Wong, an athlete and physio-therapist, gives you two things:
1) Hope
2) What to do for full recovery
Eric had a medial meniscus tear. When he shot the video, he was still in rehab process. He started with an acute pain. Now the pain is almost gone, and he is able to do things he would never have imagined doing immediately after the injury. That alone is proof enough to make me want to try what he recommends in the video.
He introduces you to some diagnostic tests that everyone can easily do from home in order to identify what type of meniscus tear you have.
He also stresses the importance of knowing your upper limit of motion range of your knee. If you want to steadily recover, it is important to give it just the right amount of stimulus for the recovering connective tissues including the injured meniscus disc so that it can produce recovering response to the stimulus. If the stimulus is too strong, it makes it worse. If it is optimal, it will be stronger without causing pain. Patience and precision are required, it should be noted.
I would like to conclude this short essay by sharing a highly informative medical article. It was written by Duke Health, a world-class academic and health care system. It is entitled "Regrow cartilage in joints? Science says you can".
Long story short, cartilage in human joints can repair itself. The process is similar to that some fish and amphibian use when they regenerate limbs. It could be harnessed to treat osteoarthritis (変形性関節症), a common syndrome seen among the ageing population.
Virginia Byers Kraus, a senior author of the article and a professor in the departments of Medicine, Pathology and Orthopedic Surgery at Duke, says molecules called microRNAs regulate the process. And she calls this human capacity to repair joint tissues our 'inner salamander' capacity because it is most famously observed in the amphibian.
Prof. Kraus mentions use of microRNAs as medicines to slow or prevent degeneration of joints in severely suffering patients. Personally, the fact that we have innate capacity to repair our degenerating joints is enough to stay hopeful. I should only be careful not to overdo it. But for those who are in severe pain to the point where simple basic activities are hard to conduct, Prof. Kraus's research should certainly be extremely encouraging.
I would like to conclude this by saying, "Where there is a will and updated medical knowledge, there is a way."
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