How long does a meniscus tear take without surgery?
How long it takes to heal a meniscus tear varies from person to person and depends on the type of injury (trauma, degenerative process) and the location of the tear. If the meniscus tear has developed over a longer period of time due to degenerative processes, then the meniscus tissue has usually already become very thin due to the increased wear and tear until the meniscus tear occurs. In such degenerative meniscus tears, a therapy without surgery (conservative therapy) is usually not very promising.
If the injury causes little or no discomfort and pain, surgery may be waived in individual cases, but healing of the worn meniscus tissue is not expected. If, on the other hand, the meniscus tear has been caused by trauma (e.g. by a sports accident), the position of the tear in the meniscus plays a role in the question of how long the healing takes. The location of meniscus injuries is often divided into three areas.
A meniscus tear in the red area is located in the outer area with good blood supply, injuries in the red-white area are located in the middle third of the meniscus and tears in the white-white area are located in the inner third. Injuries in the red and red-white area have a relatively good healing tendency if they are treated without surgery. Meniscus tears in the white-white area (i.e. on the inner side of the meniscus with poor or no blood supply) show no healing activity.
Injuries in this area cannot be treated conservatively and have to be removed during a knee arthroscopy. The duration of wound healing after a torn meniscus depends not only on the extent of the meniscus damage itself, but also on the extent of damage to the surrounding tissue in the knee joint. The torn meniscus rubs against the adjacent cartilage surfaces and can cause further injuries here. If a torn meniscus remains untreated for a long time, even more structures in the knee joint are often affected, which disrupts the healing process.
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