Hello and welcome to the Knee Pain Guru, Knee Pain Questions Answered. My name is Bill Parravano and this week I am having question from Lisa. She says, I fell in February of this year at the time of the Fall, I thought it was just the knee. The MRI shows I have a complete PCL tear and medial meniscus tear. My doctor thinks we should do rehab and try and avoid surgery which I agree with. My problem is my knee is buckled three times now and I am afraid I am going to make things worst. On top of that I got results that from my shoulders and I have tore rotator cuff, it will need surgery on that.
Right now I have to use crutches and lots of pain in my shoulders. I think I need to wait for my knee to heel before getting my shoulders fixed otherwise I will not be able to get to maintain. Will or can a complete PCL tear heal on its own? Please help thanks and by the way she is a 53 year old female. Lisa thanks for your question and the piece about being a 53 year old female has a huge part in whether or not doctors will suggest for surgery. The reason being is the ligament that you tore may not heal most likely it won't especially if it is a complete PCL tear at least to my knowledge that's what it is, because if once the ligament is separated from the research that I have done and what I know about it that the ligament wouldn't be able to grow back together.
What I believe the doctors suggesting is that you rehab the knees so you strengthen the knee back again. So you would be able to function normally. When I injured my knee I tore my ACL which is a different ligament in the knee, the doctors suggested that I get the surgery if I was going to be athletic, continue to be athletic. The doctor may have looked at you and said you are 53 years old; you may or may not be athletic so the need for surgery would not be necessary. However just because you have the surgery does not mean it makes the pain go away that's something that is apples and oranges as far as dealing with knee pain.
So they can fix the PCL, however you can still have pain in your knee and that's what I was dealing with in my own injury. So what I would suggest is doctors giving you exercises to do, continue to do what the doctors suggest. I would suggest going ahead and getting my new book 'Stop Your Knee Pain Now' as well as the corresponding video that goes with it. That's going to help you stretch and strengthen the tendons and ligaments in the knee; the other ones that are still intact as well as you are going to be able to rely on the tendons which to my knowledge especially in your e-mail have not been injured.
So that would be an approach that you would go and as far as the shoulder problem as well that just, it just sucks. So hang in there as far as that goes, continue to increase your water intake, keep your diet clean, keep your body alkaline on the inside that's going to optimize your body's ability to heal itself and hopefully that answers your question. If that doesn't please feel free to send me an e-mail at bill@thekneepainguru.com and for anyone else out there that would like to send a question use that same e-mail address as well. So thank you so much and we will be in touch soon. Bye-bye.
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