57 year old quite heavy male. Just had a repair to both the medial and lateral meniscii - they were trimmed lateral had a degenerative tear at the edge but the medial was the worst.
When i tore the medial I left it to calm down by itself and set it off again a few months later so had two 4 week periods of doing nothing - pretty much unable to walk Managed to get it MRI’d then it was on to surgery.
Was walking with crutches immediately after and using them for the best part of a week. I had rehab exercises which have been good but I’m still struggling a bit to be honest and have seen the physio for a follow up. I need to build up far more muscle around the joint for stability which makes sense really as it had been around a year from tearing it to getting it sorted and Im old. I also have some arthritus in there which hopefully you shouldn’t.
Every case is different and you will be different. All I can say is if you do have surgery make sure you follow the rehab, do as much as you can, if you push it you’ll know because your knee will tell you.
The leaflet I got from the physio-terrorist only advised cycling/spinning after three weeks which I managed but found tough though others have said two or three days but then i had probably more done inside my knee (cleaned out) and I’m old so don’t recover as quickly as you “young uns”. This is also uk based so more of a production line of surgeries at times.
If you go for surgery line up a good series on netflix or prime to watch, get some books in and opt out of Strava for a while. Thats all good for mental health and work at the rehab one day at a time. Best of luck 