Knee surgery for meniscus tears shown to be ineffective or downright harmful

[JanAtheCPA]

A common knee surgery might be unnecessary or even harmful - just like the findings for common back surgeries (corroborated by a number of our community members over the years).

"MRI scans often reveal meniscal tears in healthy people with no symptoms." This will sound familiar to anyone who has read Dr Sarno.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/29/knee-surgery-cartilage-damage-patients-study (Knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients, study suggests)

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

A common knee surgery might be unnecessary or even harmful - just like the findings for common back surgeries (corroborated by a number of our community members over the years).

"MRI scans often reveal meniscal tears in healthy people with no symptoms." This will sound familiar to anyone who has read Dr Sarno.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/29/knee-surgery-cartilage-damage-patients-study (Knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients, study suggests)

Very similar results in an example Steve Ozanich gave in his book - for osteoarthritis in the knee - the sham surgery produced the same benefit and for many the legitimate surgery actually made them worse. TMS coming to the fore!

 

[Rusty Red]

A common knee surgery might be unnecessary or even harmful - just like the findings for common back surgeries (corroborated by a number of our community members over the years).

"MRI scans often reveal meniscal tears in healthy people with no symptoms." This will sound familiar to anyone who has read Dr Sarno.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/29/knee-surgery-cartilage-damage-patients-study (Knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients, study suggests)

Yep, they saw it on my X-ray many years ago even before I became active and started running. Very very common. My fiance had surgery for it and I hate that he still stresses over it.

 

[Rabscuttle]

I wonder how much of this is related to fear and not setting realistic expectations regarding post op care as well as not addressing the mental health struggles related to surgical recovery.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it a bunch but my symptom that led me to debilitating chronic pain was post vasectomy pain. Post vasectomy pain syndrome can have crazy high incidence rates. I’ve kinda theorized that a big part of the issue is 1) the nature of the area (overprotective of our gentials) and 2) poor post op instructions that are vague or overly optimistic (you’ll be fine in 2 days, you’ll be playing sports in a week) and so when that pain persists beyond the expected period you can very easily get thrown into a panic (my case) and start hyperfixating on the area and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy where you create the chronic pain (also me, lol). Doctors need to do a better job of managing expectations and explaining the mental side to recovery from any procedure, not panicking at pain, every body is different etc etc. I think something similar happens with meniscus surgeries, where people are probably already in a shitty spot, likely lost access to their physical outlet, or had their traumatic injury during it (lots of fear), lost their ability to work a physical job ( pressure, lack of self worth) so when recovery takes longer than expected panic can very easily set in and you start obsessing about the pain, pain becomes chronic, you become less active, more predisposed to a variety of issues (osteoarthritis which the article mentions). They performed ‘sham’ surgeries as a sort of control or variable- I don’t know science experiment terms lol, but all they did was make an incision, so there’s obviously going to be less post op pain and less of a recovery process so less panic and probably more optimism to reengage with life, exercise PT etc.

On a positive note when I got over the vasectomy pain I actually reached out to the doctor who performed my vasectomy regarding all this stuff and they seemed willing implement TMS stuff and just overall mental wellbeing during post op recovery. Whether they did or not who knows, I’m not getting another vasectomy to find out, lol.

Definitely an interesting story, thanks for sharing.