You’re hobbling around with a damaged knee — perhaps you wrenched it playing a sport or simply misstepped and heard or felt a dreaded pop.
Given how complex your knee joints are, it should come as no surprise that the damage might involve more than one important connective tissue. Such is often the case with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears and meniscus tears — more than 60% of meniscus tears occur at the same time as, or on the heels of, an ACL tear.
As a knee expert, board-certified orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Schell is familiar with the link between meniscus tears and ACL tears, and he treats both, whether they occur separately or together.
So, if you want to do a little preliminary exploration on your knee pain, read on to learn about combination ACL and meniscus tear injuries.
When it comes to your knees, it’s helpful to take a quick dive into anatomy to better understand why ACL and meniscus tears so often co-occur.
Your ACL forms an X inside your knee with your posterior and anterior cruciate ligaments. These two tissues keep your knee stable. In more detail, your ACL ligament is responsible for keeping your shin and thigh bones in position relative to your knee, and the connective tissue also provides rotational stability.
Your menisci (you have two in each knee) are wedge-shaped pieces of cartilage that act as shock absorbers in your knees and transfer weight from your shin bone to your thigh bone. They also provide stability for your knee.
Each year in the United States, Americans incur about half a million meniscus tears, and ACL tears account for about half of all knee injuries.
When these two occur together, and this happens regularly, it’s often due to a sudden change of direction that stresses these tissues. Or, it can occur because of jamming your knee or direct trauma.
Aside from the severity of the acute injury, ACL and meniscus tears can also co-occur because of wear and tear. As you get older, these tissues can become weaker, and it takes less trauma to tear these tissues.
Lastly, sometimes meniscus tears occur after an ACL tear — as you limp around on a knee that has a damaged ACL, you place more stress on neighboring connective tissues.
To prevent a cascade of damage in your knee, it’s important to come see us at the first signs of trouble. Our first order of business is to determine the extent of the damage to your knee, which we can do with advanced imaging, such as an MRI.
In many cases, however, it isn’t until Dr. Schell gets inside arthroscopically that we can truly figure out which tissues are damaged.
From there, Dr. Schell can determine how to best repair the damage so that you regain use of your knee. In some cases, he might repair the meniscus first and then tackle your ACL, or he might be able to repair them together.
To figure out what’s going on inside your knee, it’s a good idea to come in for a consultation. To get started, please contact Dr. Schell and our team at our New York City office — which is located on Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side — at 646-381-2646. You can also send a message to us by clicking here.
