Don’t fret!! Damaged cartilage can heal itself!!

Apparently damaged cartilage really can heal on its own!!!!! 🤯

Have you ever heard a doctor, specialist, or another human say that broken or damaged cartilage typically never heals? Like, if you find that you have excessive wear-and-tear and/or arthritis in a joint in the body, then buckle up, buttercup, because it’s only going to get worse from here!!! I mean, there is nothing you can actually DO about it so prep yourself for a whole lotta pain and a joint replacement one day, while you’re at it!!

Because normally the advice is to live with it until the pain becomes too severe and then opt for the joint replacement or some type of surgery to “fix” the issue. Since, once again, there is rarely another choice given, where a doctor or specialist would explain that there is a way for you to let your own body heal itself…..

Well, I am here to tell you that it really is a possibility!!! The body has this unbelievable ability to heal itself when presented with the right conditions. And my experience with this is through the natural healing of my own articular cartilage in the knee joint….

….yet if THAT can heal – – which I know for a FACT that it can because of my ^surgery from three weeks ago – – then why wouldn’t cartilage damage in a hip joint or a shoulder joint be able to heal as well???

Amazing, right?????!!!!! Or are you still a bit doubtful? 🤨

Understandably so.

Cuz if you Google “how does damaged cartilage heal” this is what you will immediately find:

‘Although articular cartilage is not capable of regrowing or healing itself, the bone tissue underneath it can. By making small cuts and abrasions to the bone underneath the area of damaged cartilage, doctors stimulate new growth…‘

**DeVries, Carrie. “Can Damaged Cartilage Be Fixed?” Sports-health, 24 October 2016, www.sports-health.com/blog/can-damaged-cartilage-be-fixed. Accessed 7 April 2021.

This makes it seem like it’s impossible to heal damaged cartilage naturally without surgical intervention, does it not? It definitely does not sound promising without an actual procedure and therefore most of us trust the medical professionals, relinquish our own body’s ability to heal, and depend on doctors and specialists to treat these issues. Especially after reading an article like that! ⬆️

Now, all I can speak from is my own experience from my current knee journey. And I’m not saying self-healing is easy-squeezy nor is it by any means “quick.” Oh no, no, no, this definitely takes time, consistency, and A LOT of patience and trust in the process….however, it truly is possible if we can give ourselves these things. And it is so unbelievably worth the time and effort it takes to support our magnificent, self-healing bodies!!!!

Here is my story recap: (and if you are already very familiar with the story, feel free to scroll down until you find –>💡💡💡 where I shall continue the scoop!!)

⏬

When I fully re-tore my left ACL, it was June of 2019. As it was torn and my knee was fluid-filled, I had a couple of bad slips inside my knee – – because the ACL prevents the tibia from sliding too far forward – – going up and down stairs, so I had bad meniscus tears on both sides of my knee. I also had a pretty-big-sized hole in my articular cartilage, on the inside-back portion of my knee, from a fall that I had while hiking the Appalachian Trail in April 2019….😬 You know, falling really is an art form! If I had allowed myself to trip and just went with the momentum, I probably would have been fine. Instead, I tripped and tried to catch myself….which meant my knee took the brunt of my klutziness. 🙄

In any case, my MRI in July 2019 showed a very messy knee, with these meniscal tears and Grade 3 damage (a deep crevice) in my medial cartilage, along with a knee containing no ACL. OOOOOF!!!!!!

Even in November 2019, when I had bone graft surgery so I could actually move forward with a Revision ACL Reconstruction in my left knee, all that mess was still there. I saw it with my own eyes, from the surgery photos taken by surgeon #1.

And now you can see it ^with your own eyes, too! This is the Grade 3 cartilage damage, AKA “the hole in my cartilage.” Yeah, you can’t miss it! Our cartilage is supposed to be perfectly white…NOT like that!

SO, this surgeon #1 made many points to say that this ⬆️ was a huge issue that needed to be addressed during the upcoming ACL Reconstruction because this damage in my cartilage “would never heal and it would only get worse over time.” He was so positive that I was destined for serious osteoarthritis in my knee that he wanted to cut a wedge out of my tibia bone, (called a High Tibial Osteotomy), to offset my weight and prevent the onset of this osteoarthritis for as long as possible.

For many reasons, including COVID, I did not go with surgeon #1 for my surgery. And I ended up having a lot of time on my hands while waiting for this next surgery that was anticipated to be soooooooooo complicated, since it entailed trying to fix my meniscus tears, somehow treating this big hole in my cartilage, and also fixating a new ACL into my bones. INTENSE.

Still, I was hell-bent on doing everything I possibly could to help my body and my poor knee get the best results. I started doing postural therapy in March 2020, because I read how powerful the healing abilities of the body could be when our alignment follows the specific design of the human body. (I was so inspired by healing stories due to postural alignment work that I became certified as a Postural Alignment Specialist over the coming months!!!) In addition to this postural therapy, I continued my attentional focus on mind-body-soul inner work, along with my physical and mental prep training for surgery and for attacking yet a third round of this super-duper long ACL rehab…..

NEXT came surgeon #2, with his extraordinarily BAD attitude.👺 He heard my long knee injury history, saw the surgery pics from November 2019 with the meniscus and cartilage damage, didn’t really look at my current MRIs taken in November 2020, and just acted like my disaster knees would never make it through another ACL Reconstruction because of “all the damage” in my knees. He’s the “you’re destined to be crippled” guy.

See-ya, crotchety-old-man surgeon #2!! 👋🏼

💡💡💡 Fast-forward to March 18th, 2021, when I can finally move forward with this Revision ACL Reconstruction with my brilliant surgeon #3!!!!

I can absolutely trust her opinion on my knee because she got to see it with her own eyes, and not just through the imaging from x-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. PLUS, the day of surgery, she was ready to fix and treat my meniscus damage and my cartilage damage because of everything I had explained about the prior condition of my knee. And what I told her about the perspectives of surgeon #1 and surgeon #2.

Wanna know what she found when she got inside my knee and did a full scope of the entire knee?????

✅ Minor damage underneath my kneecap…something that I never felt and never even knew was there!!! So she cleaned that up.

What about the awful meniscus damage and that chunk of missing and “unhealable” cartilage damage that would never get better on its own????

❌ Well, all of that clearly got better on their own because my lovely surgeon #3 found NOTHING TO DO!! No meniscus damage or cartilage damage to repair. In her words, “everything else was totally fine.” And all that she needed to do was attach the new ACL tissue inside my knee. So, her work was so much easier than expected AND therefore my initial recovery was (and has been since) so much easier than expected!!!!!! 🤗🙌🏼

How do ya like that?!?!?!?!?! (I love it!!! I am a BIG FAN of this freakin’ story and the fact that my body proved that articular cartilage can, in fact, heal itself REGARDLESS of what google says or what doctors/specialists may believe!!!)

ME:

Like I said, a big fan!!!!! 😁

Have I been and do I keep harping on my long knee journey and everything that I have been through????? You bet I do!!!! And why do I continue to do this?? Because my knee injury journey has been going on for almost 8 years now, with repetitive injuries and six surgeries along the way. On paper, it sounds terrible for me and the health of my knees. 🥺

AND YET, 8 years later, I still have been able to heal damaged cartilage and damaged meniscus tears and have no real signs of osteoarthritis – – on a knee that has endured FOUR out of my six knee surgeries. After all of it, my knee is not perfect, by any means, yet it is still in pretty good shape!! And that’s because I have always put in the work and because I absolutely refuse to give up on me and to give up on my body.

Even when I had a “top surgeon in Western NY,” with all of his schooling, training, and credentials, basically suggest that I give up and succumb to the life of pain and arthritis that was waiting for me down the road….

Turns out, he couldn’t have been more WRONG!!!!!!!! (HA!!!! 😏) Since I have the surgery pic from March 18, 2021, looking at the same basic spot as the damaged cartilage in the photo earlier in this post…I think??!!!! I never was walked through this collection of pics from my most recent surgery….so perhaps I am totally mistaken!!….however, I believe that the darkest spots from November 2019 are still kinda there in the March 18, 2021 pic – – only super slightly and you can see that the rest of the cartilage has healed!

Take a peak yourself!!!

Compare the damaged cartilage of November 2019, with that big triangular chunk that is missing, with the dark crevice found on the right side….

….with the “damaged cartilage” of March 18th, 2021!!!!! Yes, the spot is still scraped up and not perfectly smooth; however the hole in the cartilage is now filled in and look how much it has healed!!!

How awesome is that⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️

PLEASE, please, please, remember this story the next time you or someone you know hears the dreaded “arthritis” or “cartilage deterioration” (or anything similar) diagnosis from a doctor or a specialist or even Web MD!! There are things you can do to taper the symptoms, eliminate the symptoms, and even reverse and actually heal the damage yourself, like my knee did.

THE HARD TRUTH: Between the bone graft surgery photos taken in November 2019 to my actual ACL Reconstructive surgery in March 2021, that was one year and four months of healing time in-between. And I understand that not everyone can, or particularly wants to, wait that long and give the body that much time to heal itself. The “quick fix mantra” often leads the way, along with our own impatience to see results yesterday! (And I totally get that!!)

HOWEVER, if you can calm the quick-fix instincts, look at the positioning of the entire body in relation to the injury, and put in the work and the TIME to heal the mind-body-spirit, you will find similar (or the same or even better) fantastic results like I did!!!

Because, again, the body wants to heal itself and it does have this unique and extensive capacity TO heal itself!!! It just needs some assistance from us sometimes, in order to do its job. And this includes realigning the body so it has the space and positioning it needs, moving forward with the most beneficial mindset, and staying consistent with the work you are putting in to help yourself.

In other words: Give your miraculous body the chance to be a success story!!!!

I second that – – GO GET IT!!!!!👏🏾👏🏼👏🏿👏🏽

➡️✨success📖✨success📖✨success📖⬅️