Injury
Acute injury to the medial meniscus fairly often accompanies an injury to the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) or MCL (medial collateral ligament). A person occasionally injures the medial meniscus without harming the ligaments. Healing of the medial meniscus is generally slow. Damage to the outer third of the meniscus will often fully heal, but the inner two thirds of the medial meniscus has a limited blood supply and thus limited healing ability. Large tears to the meniscus may require surgical repair or removal. If the meniscus has to be removed (menisectomy) because of injury (either because it cannot heal or because the damage is too severe), the patient has an increased risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knee later in life.
More chronic injury occurs with osteoarthritis, made worse by obesity and high-impact activity. The medial meniscus and the medial compartment are more commonly affected than the lateral compartment.
Read more about this topic: Medial Meniscus
Famous quotes containing the word injury:
“A great proportion of architectural ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them off, like borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials.... What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature, and the architects of our bibles spent as much time about their cornices as the architects of our churches do? So are made the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their professors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“At last, an injury suffered brings you back to my bed, expelling you from the doors of another!”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)