My Plica Syndrome - Part 1 - Pre-surgery

It was a seemingly harmless niggling feeling in my knee after running.

I decided nothing too bad, and went for another run the next day. And then walked a whole bunch in Korea the following week.

What followed was a 9 month long knee pain/discomfort that I couldn't really explain for the first 6 months until MRI results showed a medial plica in my left knee that was possibly causing my problems.

red area is where the pain/discomfort is. Blue areas are where i experience tightness for unknown reasons.

My exact symptoms evolved and varied with time, but some of them:
- Tightness in both quads, at the blue spots marked above
- Tightness in hamstrings
- Abovementioned tightness would happen mostly with prolonged standing, and very oddly, when any fabric rested on my knees.
- Rubbing sensation on the inside of left knee (plica)
- Knee would feel warm at the red region after certain exercises (e.g. deadlift)
- Weakness/tight feeling in left knee.
- Tightness can evolve to pain if I keep applying pressure on left knee.

I did everything - see multiple doctors and specialists, physios, even TCM. But nothing helped. I stretched diligently every day, foam rolled. But nothing helped.

So after a long and fruitless battle... I gave in and decided to try for the last resort, surgery. It would be a simple procedure - a knee arthroscopy, where the doctor makes 2 small incisions on each side of the knee, and goes in to shave away the plica.

The thing is, there is no guarantee that this will take away my problems. It is the best hypothesis as to what was causing it, as doctors had ruled out ligament / meniscus damage. I'm quite apprehensive of this surgery, as I've never gone for surgery (or been under GA) before.

My surgery will be in 2 week's time... I'm hoping it will go smoothly, and recovery will be quick and easy. I'll update again then.