A torn miniscus

I heard you're never the same after it.

is that your suilder?
or knee?

its your knee

having anything torn in your knee will affect your skiing in one way or another. i'm not 100% familiar with the function of the miniscus so i can't say exactly what it will do to you but if surgury is an option, take it!

It is not a long healing process, my dad is 54 and he did tore his meniscus 2 weeks ago and he's playing tennis again already. Depends on how bad of a tear it is, it could take 3 weeks to 3 months to recover. But you will want to have surgery if it's completely torn in half.

depending on how bad the tear is a torn meniscus can keep you from walking or just be a simple nuisance. you have two meniscus' [menisci?], the lateral and medial. both of these only receive blood supply to the outer rings of the meniscus. so a tear will only repair itself if it is in an area that has blood supply. 

the meniscus is basically lubricant for your knees, and keeps your bones from grinding together. a small tear or strain might only be on one side and get inflammed after a few hours of skiing. which is easily ignored by taking ibuprofen before running around. but a big tear can feel like needles and serious pain while attempting physical activity. the biggest fear is that a tear can easily lead to premature arthritis, especially if it isn't treated or the tear is large.

its also possible that left untreated and in a place that doesn't heal a tear can be worsened, though i was told this wasn't likely with simple walking and light running, but skiing could be a different matter.

i had a bad climbing accident where i tore my medial meniscus very severely. i didn't even know [because of the other pains and xrays didn't show much of anything] until a few days later i was pulling on my socks tearing it worse and causing it to flip over and lock my knee. i only had a range of movement of about 15 degrees in my knee and couldn't get any closer than 30 degrees off of straightening my leg.

i had my knee scoped in the summer because my tear was bad enough that it was going to take almost 4 months before it was 100 percent, but i was tramping and running as soon as a week after my surgery with little to no pain and was almost 90 percent within a month.

the xrays i had done didn't show much, and i needed an mri so the doc could see exactly what was wrong. but don't wait if you need surgery... its not that bad and is an outpatient procedure.

i tore my medial and lateral meniscus with my ACL and my sergion told me they consider a meniscus repair an equal or bigger repair then an ACL due to the fact it is very soft and for it to repair it must have minimal stress...u will deff prob want to get sergery if thats what ur asking...as for down time im not sure but i would guess no less then 3 months

He knows what he is talking about. Here are a couple things to add.

1) In addition to pain, a meniscus tear can also cut down on your range of motion. A common symptom is for the knee to be unable to completely straighten.

2) Do what your doctor tells you. Tears can worsen so if you are told not to do something, don't do it till you're healed.

3) If it is surgical, they will either clip a piece of the meniscus off, try to repair it, or remove it altogether. Clipping and removal have a shorter healing time, but the less of your meniscus you have, the sooner you'll get osteo-arthritis. If they repair it, don't do anything on it till it's healed or you'll ruin the repair job.

4)I've had two meniscus surgeries. I still ride hard and am not really hindered by those two surgeries. If you play it smart, you'll be riding just as hard as ever.