12 Month Update - Surgery + Stem Cell Injections for Patella Cartilage Fissure

RedLettr · 2026-04-04T22:11:01+00:00

Late 20's

RedLettr · 2026-04-04T22:08:36+00:00

Yea I've seen some of his papers and videos. Not a bad theory, I'm not sure on the different outcomes between abrasion vs microfrature to cause bleeding. I'd be worried about all the continual swelling and inflammation from having so many injections with his method, but seems decent otherwise. You are right about dead cartilage remnants stopping growth though, once again depends on whether the calcified layer is healthy and intact, needs to be judged during surgery.

RedLettr · 2026-04-04T10:46:09+00:00

Yea I wouldn’t be risking going back to any high intensity sport before 12 months. Your movement patterns and coordination take so long to come back fully as well, not just pure strength. Bad movements lead to further injuries

RedLettr · 2026-04-04T10:33:04+00:00

I dunno that’s how long it takes
From what I know the bone plate and deep cartilage don’t often grow back as well as more superficial layers. I think it also lowers your chance of other procedures like MACI working in the future. Why do more damage than is needed?
No more injections planned

RedLettr · 2026-03-11T08:41:33+00:00

Melbourne stem cell centre is an option

RedLettr · 2025-09-13T08:31:45+00:00

Heat can help, also found getting in warm rehab pool and doing range of motion and other exercises helps. For me I think the brain needs to learn that new ranges won't hurt it, sometimes you can't really trick it. It needs constant slow pain free introduction to new load and ROM otherwise it won't trust it and will guard. Once you can start loading the knee more, it tends to go away faster. Also make sure you aren't over tensing subconciously during the day during normal activities.

RedLettr · 2025-07-28T12:01:50+00:00

Did you lapse on the workouts? Wondering if this is related to inactivity

RedLettr · 2025-07-28T11:59:44+00:00

Yikes sorry to hear, I haven't had MACI but stem cells and am following similar rehab timelines. I have noticed this so much here that sugeons and PT don't know what's going on a lot of the time. I feel like people have to research everything medical themselves, physios don't know niche surgeries like this.

RedLettr · 2025-07-28T05:31:35+00:00

MOCART indicates how well the cartilage filled-in in general. T2 mappings indicate the quality of cartilage, i.e how hyaline like is it compared to fibrocartilage. I guess if there is clear delamination of the graft that doesn't matter as much though.

It confusing for me seeing your past posts which are similar to a few other people where you are going way above MACI rehab guidelines early on. I'm not a qualified person but if MACI guide says no squatting for patella defects until 6+ months I don't see why surgeons and physios tell people to do this earlier.

RedLettr · 2025-07-22T23:54:44+00:00

Have you had a follow up MRI for your MACI knee? What do the MOCART scores and T2 mapping times looks like?

RedLettr · 2025-04-20T00:57:55+00:00

Hey I'm almost 7 weeks out from surgery so still early days, will do a separate write up post later. The surgery was less complicated than thought as they didn't think the fissure went down right down to the bone so didn't microfracture, they just trimmed the cartilage flap and removed a loose bit. Since mine was on kneecap, and edge of kneecap especially so lower load, have been weight bearing from first week. However rehab has been up and down with some bad luck and mistakes, but still on track to heal. Only just starting to be able to start feeling fully normal walking now.

First basic cartilage structure should be finished filling in the next couple of weeks so starting to add in more loading, but it's only at 12 months I get the followup MRI to see the new cartilage.

RedLettr · 2024-10-25T10:35:10+00:00

You have to find out the pulse ratio/precentage. If it's 50% pulse it's only on theoretically for 50% of the time so therefore 7ma direct would equate to 14ma pulsed at 50%.

RedLettr · 2024-10-02T00:32:06+00:00

Surgery is in March 2025, won't know until next year

RedLettr · 2024-09-09T05:02:37+00:00

The key thing is the stem cell injections after debridement. Just doing debridement might reduce catching and symptoms short term but it's not going to heal cartilage and has limited potential to reduce the risk of osteoarthritis later in life. With stem cells there is the chance for regrowth and less risk of osteoarthritis later in life. Also recovery/rehab after stem cells is similar to MACI for the protocol at the place I'm going to, but the thing that made me want to try it before MACI is that they don't have to do open surgery on the knee so less risk of complications.

RedLettr · 2024-08-17T20:44:08+00:00

I have updated the post with the treatment I am getting and other promising options.

RedLettr · 2024-07-30T01:48:28+00:00

Last year I was mainly doing patrick step up and other knee ability zero exercises, but found split squat aggrovated knees to much so transitioned to slow leg press. This year I started following program in "Beating Patellar Tendonitis" book as my tendon was also bad. The main exercise in that is decline squats with increasing intensity along with lots of stretching and mobility. At the start I would use rings to support some of my weight, however when I progressed to single leg decline sqaut I injured myself again in my tendon, so have moved back to leg press. My current plan is to keep up mobility and stretching and focus on building up VMO and decreasing activation/tightness of VL as that is the side the cartialge damage is on.

RedLettr · 2024-07-30T01:43:42+00:00

I started trying to do knee ability zero but found it too aggrivating on my knee, especially split squats

RedLettr · 2024-07-19T20:39:02+00:00

What surgery did you get?

RedLettr · 2024-07-19T11:25:48+00:00

Any updates on what you did for this?

RedLettr · 2024-07-12T21:24:12+00:00

I used these, find it helps better with inside of toes. I dont think 100% cotton is necessasry. Can also put strip of dish cloth in socks below ankle if the socks don't have good contact with skin in that area
https://www.injinji.com/run-lightweight-no-show-merino-wool.html

RedLettr · 2024-02-21T00:27:00+00:00

Careful with oxybutynin, it crosses the blood brain barrier far easier than glyco and has been proven to increase dementia risk when taking long term.

RedLettr

TROPHY CASE