Surgery the great healer v time the great healer.
Had a left knee arthroscopy in mid 20s (soccer). Torn MCL in right knee with meniscus damage (skiing) followed by ripping my achilles same leg (soccer) in early 40s. 56 now, ran distance in mid 40s, marathon at 48, switched to sprinting early 50s, now competitively. Just to say.....don't be put off that your knee is dodgy, keep moving (without pain preferably!).
My ski injury came with the benefit and insight of a specialist knee doctor in the Swiss alps who has seen more knees than hot dinners probably who advised not to let a surgeon tooled up with a scalpel anywhere near my knee...on the basis that I already had had surgery on the other knee. Returning to the uk, a later mri scan revealed the damage and advice was to operate. I decided to decline.
Some years later - actually on my 50th birthday walking around Berlin - I had some annoying pain issues in my right knee which got worse and had it looked at. Both knees were scanned as a comparison. My left knee - the one with no pain - had no meniscus at all, my right was worn to almost nothing. "quite common for your age' was the take....'with a lot of wear and tear, it's to be expected'....'could be genetic, arthritic generalised pain'......'better take it easy'....
I don't know, really no idea if I should have listened to the advice or not. Maybe in years to come I'll regret not doing so.
I'm tempted to go to the docs for a scan of both knees again because I don't seem to have the same knees that I had 6 years ago. About 4 years ago I pinged something in my knee jumping a wall and had some pain for a while, also had an accident on ice walking my dog and pulled something which resulted in knee pain so it's not as if I've been pain or injury free at all since, really.
I have full range of motion. Can deep squat. Can pistol squat again (I lost it for a while)....so I'm not limited in any movement.
It's a call to make if you should have surgery and each need will be different. But going back to the knee doc I had, a conversation I vividly recall, he said then that advances in knowledge about how our ability to repair ourselves suggests that given time we can. BUT, and it is a big but, something which requires maybe an element of luck if it was the right call or not, do we have the time? We want to be fixed and demand it now.....so no answers, flip a coin, who knows. Anyway that conversation was 15 years ago. I'm not sure if the surgery v time issue is any clearer.
I do a lot of mobility now though on my ankles, knees and hips. As well as strength, and high load full intensity sprinting, I do Feldenkrais method. I can't say which one impacts me the most, in terms of knees. All of them. Without one, there is no other, they all bounce off each other.
I know of other guys my age who have had some good results from surgery and some very bad ones too. It's a tough call...but don't be disheartened by dodgy knees. Knee circles and sitting in seiza with support is a good non invasive try out with the caveat of zero pain or discomfort.
Elective surgery is a personal decision. Some injuries perhaps are more responsive to surgery, others more risky, who knows. Tough call to make.