I am at month 8 of a tibial plateau fracture that required ORIF: screws and a graft. This was a horse related twisting grinding injury, and my cartilage is pretty screwed up. I have had chronic pain, and cannot walk far, and not without pain or a limp. I had a scope at 6 months. There was a lot of damage trimmed up, both sides of the TP cartilage, one side from the injury and the medial side he guessed from normal wear and tear. He also trimmed back the meniscus which was torn and folded back, and cleaned the back of my kneecap. The PA later told me they trimmed my cartilage from 4mm to 2 mm thick. They did not work on the femur cartilage, but I was told earlier on that it was pretty dinged up in the accident and will likely fall apart sooner.
The scope helped for a while, but I think I am back to where I was before the scope. My OS is a very good one and says I will be up and down and need more procedures and eventually a knee replacement. I am 44 so that may be a long ways off (although if this keeps up, I might be begging for one sooner.)
Actually I am holding out hope that they come up with something else before my knee replacement is due. I talked to a surgeon at U of Ia H&C because they are doing some experimenting with tp cartilage transplants. I hope they figure that out before I need it, but since my injury was work comp, I am probably very limited in what they will pay for.
I cannot kneel, crawl, squat, jump or run or do stairs other than hopping or one-stepping them with a hand railing and am in constant pain, even when sitting. I expect to be released in 6-8 weeks, according to the OS.
I'm in a panic now, because I am afraid this is all the better it gets. I am not even back to work fulltime on site, I am working from home 1-2 days per week which cuts my driving by 2-4 hours per week and dramatically cuts the time I have to spend on my feet. So I am even more worried that once I am back 5 days per week, I am going to quickly become a cripple. My heel and calf on the bad side and my knee and hip on the good side are in frequent pain due to my bad gait, and I am wearing out shoes on the left due to the way I twist off that foot to avoid heel-to-knee motion which is the most painful.
That is the last 8 months in a nutshell. If anyone has advice, stories of inspiration, or experience with this kind of injury and work comp, I would love to listen.