Just learned that I have a torn meniscus - now what?

[eckilson]

I have had a sore knee since December that has made it impossible to kneel in my canoes. Doctors initially told me it was arthritis and recommended physical therapy and NSAIDS. Physical therapy has gotten me to the point that I no longer take the NSAIDS and has pretty much eliminated the pain for anything other than kneeling in the canoe. I just had a MRI, and it turns out that I have a torn meniscus in addition to arthritis. Not necessarily looking for medical advice, just wondering if anyone else here has had torn meniscus and how it effected their paddling.

I missed this year's entire whitewater season - I haven't been in my WW solo boats with pedestals since November. I can kneel for short periods, but I pretty quickly need to sit again, or at least extend my sore knee. If I can't knee again it won't be the end of the world. There are plenty of trips that I can do while sitting (including my sea kayak), but I really would like to get back into my whitewater boats.

Anyone else dealing with this issue?

 

[M Clemens]

I had a torn meniscus a few years ago that was 'trimmed off' and prevented conventional kneeling. A friend of Dave Yost who had been in a bad wreck shared a technique for kneeling that involves crossing one's ankles, which places the pressure on a different place on the knee. It felt awkward at first, but I can now stay in the kneeling position for nearly an hour before switching to a seated position.

 

[eckilson]

Thanks - I'll give that a try.

 

[bartcanoed]

Everybody is different, but I tore my meniscus (football) way back in the 80's. After partial removal, I returned to normal activities including kneeling in a canoe. It did contribute to osteoarthritis, but what ended my kneeling was a torn ACL and reconstruction in the 90's. Not only because of the discomfort of pressure on the knee, but a loss of some of my range of motion prevented comfortable kneeling. To continue to enjoy whitewater I started paddling a kayak. Never really enjoyed it like the canoe primarily because it was limited to day paddling and was often on crowded rivers taking away much of what I enjoy about paddling. Almost two years ago, I had a total knee replacement, alas despite it being a great decision for hiking, biking and other activities I still can't kneel comfortably for any length of time. I guess I need a raft.

Sorry, that probably wasn't the most encouraging just sharing my experience.

 

[snapper]

Had my first knee reconstruction at 16, way back in 1969. I had meniscus damage and a torn ACL, PCL and MCL; lots of damage. After that surgery I could only kneel on one knee. As time, and other surgeries caught up with me, I couldn't kneel at all. For many years now I've been a "sitter" and not a kneeler.
Hopefully your situation will turn out better than mine.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[ABT]

I had a torn meniscus repaired about 2.5-3 years ago. Kneeling is still uncomfortable with that knee but I am able to do it for 30 minutes or so, sometimes up to an hour. In whitewater I just have to take breaks in eddies and loosen my thigh straps and stretch it out or take the pressure off of it. I installed a traditional seat in my Caption (set up solo) with thigh straps and knee pads with the thought I could switch to sitting in an eddy for a couple of minutes if needed, and still be strapped in kneeling for the rapids like I see the Canadian or UK trad boaters doing (like Evan Levebre or Ken Hughes on YouTube in a Prospecteur Sport, etc). Haven’t had a chance to really try it out yet as I’ve been pretty good with scooting up onto the high part of the back of the pedestal in my Outrage. While I can’t put my leg out in front of me, it still takes enough pressure off of that knee that I’m able to recover in just few minutes and keep going. Usually don’t even slow the group down, I just peel out last if I need the extra time.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I was diagnosed with a torn meniscus in my knee—or some fragments that had torn away—in 2017. It was apparently just from old age degeneration and not from any particular trauma. It caused some instability and pain in my knee. I don't recall whether I was canoeing much that year; I may not have been at all.

Anyway, the first orthopedic surgeon I saw was aggressively advocating arthroscopic meniscectomy outpatient surgery. He couldn't guarantee anything, but said the surgery would very likely to resolve the problem. I was reluctant to have surgery. So, I got a second opinion from a different orthopedic surgeon. He said that although an arthroscopic meniscectomy "wasn't rocket science", sometimes the pain would just resolve on its own if one did nothing.

I didn't have the surgery and the pain did go away by itself after several months and has never returned. However, i did not have arthritis in the knee.

I know you do a lot of different types of paddling, Erik, so you don't need me to tell you these things, but I'll mention them.

- Some whitewater can be run sitting with the right techniques and canoes.

- There is abundant canoeing life other than whitewater. I was a whitewater addict for 20 years, but have only paddled whitewater once in the past 25 years and not at all in the last 15 years. Some of that has been due to the disappearance of whitewater companions and to old age, both of which make the kind of whitewater paddling I used to do much too risky.

- Some of the physical and mental boat control and maneuverability challenges I enjoyed facing in whitewater have been replaced by the boat control challenges of freestyle canoeing and paddling on move-a-minute streams such as those in the New Jersey Pinelands. Of course, I can still kneel, but not for long—due not to knee pain, but to circulatory and now neurological issues in my legs.

- Different strokes can keep afloat even older folks.

 

[eckilson]

- Different strokes can keep afloat even older folks.

Thanks everyone - sorry hear that there are others with the same affliction, but good to see that I am not alone and that you guys are continuing to paddle. I know eventually age (and probably arthritis) will end my whitewater paddling, but I would rather it be a few years away.

While I haven't been out in my whitewater solo since last November, I have done a couple of trips in my tandem boat - kneeling in the rapids and sitting on the seat in the flats. That has worked OK, but I am not really thrilled about using bench seats in whitewater. I'd be happy if I got to the point like ABT that I could scoot up onto the high part of the back of the pedestal in my Outrage (I actually have two - RX MR and composite Millbrook) to give my knee a break. I'm not there yet.

I have another doctor's appointment on Tuesday. Because of the arthritis, they seem reluctant to repair the torn meniscus surgically for fear that it would aggravate the arthritis. I obviously don't want to do that.

You are right Glenn - there are lots of ways to paddle that doesn't involve kneeling. Hate to say it, but living in Rhode Island, some of the best paddling around is on the ocean in a sea kayak.

https://flic.kr/p/2srExRV

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

You are right Glenn - there are lots of ways to paddle that doesn't involve kneeling. Hate to say it, but living in Rhode Island, some of the best paddling around is on the ocean in a sea kayak.

Actually, what I said and meant that there is abundant open canoe life other than paddling in whitewater or from one's knees. However, I have nothing personally against kayaking; it's just that this forum's focus is on canoeing.

I was mostly a sea kayaker from 1996 to 2004. For one reason, sea kayaking was then "in the air." Secondly, a very close friend of mine couldn't canoe anymore because of back pain, so he migrated to sea kayaking and told me he could get the same "motion pleasure" from sea kayaking as from single-blade canoeing. I never found that to be true at all. Plus, I never had a reliable sea kayak roll, so I was afraid to paddle serious ocean waters.

Hence, I bought a Hawaiian outrigger canoe in 2004 and paddled that as my primary paddlecraft until 2009 (when I returned to traditional open canoes). Outrigger paddling is seated paddling with a single blade, and is much easier to self-rescue than rolling a kayak (for me). I paddled that outrigger in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Ambiguity off Florida, as well as on all sorts of inland rivers, lakes and swamps all over North America. I highly preferred it over sea kayaking. That boat now lives on Nantucket.

I don't recall all of your fleet, Erik, but recall commenting that mine did not stay the same from my 60s to my 80s. In addition to and far more common than outrigger canoes, there are many open canoes made for both bottom sitting and elevated sitting that single bladers adapt to and enjoy.

Change accompanies ageing, and at an increasing rate. Do I miss whitewater as my paddling life has changed with age?

Yes.

But no more than I miss a plethora of other things that I enjoyed when younger—everything from various sports and activities I used to engage in, to something as simple as walking a quarter mile, even to work, and mostly to a raft of deceased or otherwise departed family and friends. Getting off a whitewater saddle in a canoe has become relatively low on all those departed totem poles of my younger life.

My experience is: Adapt as well as I can; and if that no longer becomes feasible for some type of paddling, move on to some other type that is more comforable for my age and health situation.

In any event, keep posting your vast canoe experience and your excellent photos and videos, regardless of what you may be paddling in the future. Or even if you stop, as some here have.

 

[PaddlingPika]

A couple of years ago stepping out of a canoe in current led to a torn meniscus for me. At first the knee was sore but not bad - couldn't quite bend it all the way but I could still kneel. After about six weeks it got dramatically worse; I could hardly walk and certainly couldn't kneel. After an MRI the doctor said it was not a repairable tear and offered two options. He could do surgery to cut out the torn pieces or try a steroid shot. I opted for the steroid shot. That allowed me to walk without crutches within a couple of days. After the shot it took months of physical therapy to be able to kneel comfortably and my knee still sometimes lets me know that it is there, but I'm back to kneeling in canoes.

 

[eckilson]

In any event, keep posting your vast canoe experience and your excellent photos and videos, regardless of what you may be paddling in the future. Or even if you stop, as some here have.

Don't worry Glenn - don't plan to give up my canoes any time soon regardless of what happens with my knees. I am quite happy to paddle sitting if that is what it takes. But I have to admit that I am a lot less dogmatic about single vs. double blade than I used to be. I'm a half-hour from some amazing salt-water venues, and that is stuff I can't do in a canoe. I won't turn to the dark side completely, but if I am stuck sitting in the boat anyway, I may venture into the shade every once in while.

 

[eckilson]

After the shot it took months of physical therapy to be able to kneel comfortably and my knee still sometimes lets me know that it is there, but I'm back to kneeling in canoes.

Good to hear. I'm scheduled for a cortisone shot on Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. I'm also going back to the physical therapists to make sure I am doing the right exercises now that we know that there is a tear in addition to the arthritis. Keeping it moving makes all the difference.

I had a flare up in my right knee a couple of years ago, but it settled down and I was back to kneeling in a couple of months. This flare up in my left knee is a little more serious and it has already been going on for 7 months. I'm still hopeful that I can get it to settle down.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I'm trying to remember how long ago I suffered a torn meniscus from a skiing mishap. It was something like 30 years ago, more than five years before i started avidly canoeing, and longer than that before i began kneeling while paddling. The doctor gave me a cortisone shot and advised me that it was probably not serious enough for surgery but would take some time for the pain to go away completely. IIRC, it was at least a year before I could kneel or walk downhill without pain. I wasn't canoeing then, but it ended my skiing for several years and limits what I can do on skis even now. I still have to be careful about walking down steep hills. But I can kneel without knee pain for several hours at a time, and have been able to at least since I got my first solo canoe 14 years ago.

That's been my experience, but I don't have arthritis in my knee.