@HH If it’s just torn cartilage it usually gets taken care of by laser surgery, at least that's what they did years ago.They actually just shave off the tear. As long as that is the only thing. Unfortunately as we age we wear down the cartilage and if you don’t have enough cartilage then it’s a different story.
I’ve torn cartilage 3 times, twice on one side and once on the other. They say it doesn’t heal, but I took glucosamine and MSM and it did regrow. (I was younger too.) The first time I know because of the MRI and then the surgery. That time my knee kept “locking” up or felt like it would collapse and I was wearing a heavy duty brace. Surgery got canceled 2 times and by the time I got the gumption to try a third time (a couple of years later,) my cartilage had regrown. But it hadn’t healed right because it turned out I had fractured my kneecap and the roughness of the bone kept tearing up the cartilage and it was catching. That turned out to be a surprise. They ended up having to smooth the bone and cut off the cartilage anyway. None of that showed up in the MRI.
The other times my knees had hurt a lot at first but by the time I got x-rays and then an MRI my knee wasn't hurting hardly so I waited it out. In my case I never had any issues later with it. But I knew that I had healed that first time and it felt different and not that bad after a few months plus.
I hope everything goes smoothly. It really was a pretty simple surgery. I just really hate surgery.