[00:00:00] Hi, dance moms. We are back, and today we are going to talk about that meniscus injury that I have paused the podcast for in order for us to really check out what exactly works and to see what time it really takes for that type of injury to heal on our end and a couple of other things. So welcome back, and, want to start with one essential thing.
and that is we did not catch this injury for quite some time. And in all honesty, we actually don't know how long this injury ha- ago it had happened. Meaning that turns out my dancer had some uncomfortable pain in her knee for quite some time, but she was kinda scared to tell me, and she thought also that it was more like, oh, it was just a normal thing.
she [00:01:00] didn't wanna be taken out of dance. So that is something that we're definitely gonna be talking about in our upcoming episodes, this fear that dancers have of actually listening to their bodies appropriately and not responding to what the studio teachers or even what the doctors are saying, but really listening to their bodies first, and then listening to professional advice next.
it's so important to really honor what you really understand about your body before you can succumb to, the studio's pressures or the doctor's dismissal of something that they think, "Oh, it's no big deal. Just try it out. Ice it. Hold it." But if you know your body well, then you will know when to really push back.
for today, this is where we were, as we found out that the injury had happened some time ago, and probably, we only have a [00:02:00] timestamp of basically November of last year, of 2025, is when we got the diagnosis through the MRI that there was a tear, and we did not know whether the tear used to be bigger and now it was smaller.
Although, if anything, it probably started small and then it got bigger simply because of the clinical symptoms that my dancer was having, that the pain got progressively worse, and various movements became more uncomfortable and more painful. and then her knee and her entire leg actually became very, very unstable.
So that ended up being more of a, telltale sign that things started to get progressively worse, as opposed to things getting better. So when we finally got that MRI result, basically right away, we made a decision that she needed to stop dancing right off, even though she was dancing on that torn meniscus before.
Well, we [00:03:00] decided that now that we knew exactly what was going on, we did not want to chance it getting any bigger or getting torn or, what is worse, is getting other injuries because of knee being unstable.
It's one thing to have a, slightly torn meniscus, and it's another thing to have a completely torn ACL because of that, instability in the knee. 'Cause every single thing in our body is there for intelligent reason. Even the appendix, even the tonsils, and tiny, tiny little menisci that are in the knees and all, other tiny little pieces that are in the knee, they all serve their purpose so that if one is out of balance, if one is injured, then all the other pieces, in that mechanism basically Are playing that role.
And for the dancers, as you know, they do crazy, crazy activities, and they put a lot of pressure and weird movements on the [00:04:00] knee. And one tiny little tweak in the wrong way could really send that knee in a really bad direction. So we basically decided that it wasn't worth it.
That while, yes, she would be missing quite a few shows, at the time, but we wanted to make sure that she could still dance for the, for the, the spring show and the final show because as always, you know, we dance moms are so good at being, being good at getting all of the costumes and everything sorted out and signing all the paperwork, and then these kinds of injuries happen.
So obviously, this was kind of a big blow because we were just few months into the company contract and the end of the year show costume payout and contract there, too, and here we have an injury. So besides the, emotional devastation, there's also that financial blow that it's like, "Okay, great, so now this is [00:05:00] all also going to be kinda left out."
And you know, the costumes are ordered, and you can't really take it back. Anyway, so that's another piece to this whole issue. But that's why we wanted to make sure that we would do everything that we can in our power to ensure that she can recover faster. So what we then did is, unfortunately our town is too small, so we don't have a capability to see a proper, orthopedic surgeon.
Okay, I'm going to be honest. I did not want to see an orthopedic surgeon because, you know, that's how they're trained. They're trained to look at things from surgical perspective, not really from a holistic or integrative perspective even. So what I wanted to know really was, okay, is this really something that is very common for sur- as a first line would be surgery, or is it something that could maybe wait?
Maybe there's a conservative treatment that would be appropriate. [00:06:00] And I wanted to hear that obviously from a professional. So, we decided to check out the, next level, orthopedic care. the appointment was great. the doctor was very much on board on the conservative treatment plan, and then we still scheduled a surgery just in case things did not heal the way we wanted to, so that we had that on the books just in case, because surgeries do fill up, and we didn't want to take even longer for that entire process to be pushed out.
So what, that allowed us to do is to kind of, in a way, have a plan B, even though, we were really committed to plan A. And the plan A was to avoid the surgery, and plan B was to have a surgery, but as minimally as invasive as possible. So plan A luckily worked out, and, this is how it worked out. the very first step [00:07:00] was to stay off The injury.
Now, it is much harder done for injuries that are some big injuries, like hip injury or a back injury, right? Because you can hop around on your other knee, or you can have crutches. that's what my dancer did. She stayed off the knee completely. But you can't really do that with injuries that are much bigger that support the whole body.
if the dancer has an injury that is, possible to basically isolate in a way that it can be, immobilized, it is most likely recommended to do that for these types of injuries, right? Like, if you have a fracture or a tear or anything that can be isolated, then it makes sense. And this was the solution also for when my dancer had a broken bone in her toe, and that was, something that I believe also made a huge difference.
when I say [00:08:00] immobilized, I don't say not moving at all. I'm saying that the pressure and the force are not being constantly put on that injured area, and that is what really makes that difference. Because when the pressure and the force are constantly being supplied to that injury, the body just does not have the time to properly heal.
And I mean, it's like a cut, right? If you're going to constantly keep rubbing it and irritating it, it's going to keep being irritated, and it's going to take a lot longer to heal. So that was our first line of, action. And, you know, as always, obviously, this is not a medical advice that I'm distributing here.
This is just sharing what my dancer did, what we did, and how we approached it from an integrative perspective. And this is something that you guys absolutely have to discuss with your, doctors, with your, medical providers. But the [00:09:00] reason why I'm saying these things is so that you are aware that these things are an option.
a lot of times we as moms, we're the decision-makers, and we just get fed this information, and we are afraid to advocate for our dancers because we feel like, well, we don't know any better. We're not doctors, so who am I to go against the doctor's advice? And nobody's saying to go against the doctor's advice, but I'm gonna say that majority of the time, and this is what I've come across in this many years of working with physicians and dealing with injuries and many other things, is that really every doctor is truly going to have their own approach and their own opinion about these certain things.
Now, yes, there is a certain protocol that majority of physicians are going to provide, and, that is not always it, because every doctor has also their own, way of how they've seen patients before, and they've seen [00:10:00] how certain things work for various patients. And so they can suggest and recommend, additional treatment options or, other things that they may think that that particular situation, that particular injury, could benefit from.
So I'm just going to say that it's our job as decision-makers and advocates for our dancers and our dancers' future is to take the information that we're given, whether it's here on this podcast and also in a doctor's office. Honestly, there is not much of a difference. And to take it in a way that is, it's information.
It's not the law. It's not the only way. It's information. And what do we do with that information? We make the informed decision. Now, if you have very little information, then your decision is based on very little information. But if you gather sufficient enough of evidence for, let's say, there's a number of people who [00:11:00] have healed their meniscus injuries without a surgery, then I know that I'm not just barking up the wrong tree or, just trying to do something impossible.
I am bringing in the information to a physician who may not have heard of it, and I'm bringing the evidence over so they can review it and say, "You know, that makes sense," or, "No, I would personally not agree with this." And then you could find a second opinion, a third opinion. And people are willing to look into various options, especially when it comes to kids.
And, you know, we're not coming into the doctor's office to battle. We're coming as an informed, participant in this whole process. And this is what I would really love for every dance mom to have, is to have this sense of empowerment and understanding that they really do have the right and authority to question and to help these [00:12:00] doctors to make better decisions when it comes to their dancers.
Because let me tell you how many times we've been in the office with, mostly it's been with the providers that are not familiar with dancers. They think that, oh, just putting things back in a certain way, it's just good enough. You know, it's, it will heal, it'll be fine. It's no big deal.
Well, but we as dance moms know that every single alignment, everything in our dancers is a big deal. And for us to push for appropriate care that will help our dancers heal fast but also heal well and in a way that they're not going to be suffering from those injuries later down the road- That's also a very important piece of this decision-making puzzle.
So for us, what we've done after we discussed this whole case with the next level orthopedic surgeon, was that we put a certain amount of weeks on the calendar. for us it was, [00:13:00] six weeks just to see where we're gonna be, and, to basically check in and see, okay, Is the progression going towards the good or not so good?
And we've done a whole bunch of other things in between, of course. we've implemented, it's our personal protocol. It's not a medical protocol, but, it's just a set of different, supplements. We've done, supplements, vitamins, minerals, of course.
also done, homeopathy treatments. Essential oils as well actually are very helpful, and, then the herbs. there are certain herbs as well that are very helpful for the healing process. because meniscus is notoriously not very vascular, meaning there's not much of a blood supply that goes to that area.
So when you have an injury that you can't get these particular nutrients to very easily, then you kind of have to come up with all of these other ways of, [00:14:00] okay, how can we support that injury from many different angles to ensure that, the anti-inflammatory support and, the antioxidant and cellular regeneration type of support gets to the site of the injury?
'Cause meniscus is, it's, it's sitting pretty deep. I mean, it's not a very superficial, easy to reach to kind of like s- like the muscles that you can just massage and all is well. but- So we used that, and then also in nutrition, of course, we've taken the next step, in nutrition and, to, to pr- basically provide those building blocks from within as opposed to just the supplements.
Because, you know, nutrition and, dietary means is really number one way of how our body can get those building blocks to help the body repair and regenerate. you don't always need a lot of other supplements to do that if you have a proper diet. So, so that's, that was kind of our mini [00:15:00] protocol in a way.
in addition to that, we requested, specifically a very good, knee brace so that the dancer was not just not putting any force on the knee, but if it so happened that you would stand on her leg, her leg would not go out of alignment. this was the second biggest thing that really made a difference.
after she stopped using crutches and she was already, stepping on her leg, she was still in the brace for about a month and a half, and then after that she was dancing with the brace for about a month as well. So all together, I would say that it took about until April is when we could say that she's pretty clear, to dance.
And she was still not doing the big jumps or the super twists, but then she started, as she felt more and more confident with [00:16:00] that, she definitely, did the progressive technique, and she progressively increased her load, of training. And then she had the spring show in May and then the final show in June, and she's still doing good.
the lesson from this entire process really has been Multifold. One is that it's essential to listen to one's body, and like I said, we will talk about this in the upcoming episodes. But, this is one thing that I find it so common in dancers, is that they wait so long with their injuries until either the body starts to heal and it starts to heal in, not quite the optimal way, or, it progressively gets worse, and it gets to a place where if in the beginning it [00:17:00] was just a small meniscus tear that you just stay off for a couple of months and, you don't even need to have a surgery, no invasive processes, nothing.
You just heal and you move on. or b- b- if you keep waiting and keep dancing through that pain, then other problems could happen, and I see that again and again, and it just, it just breaks my heart that a lot of studios are not supportive of dancers, sitting out. That if you do feel like something is off, you have to speak up.
And this is something that I've been working with my dancer on, and we're gonna hopefully have her on the show, sometime soon, where she will talk about some of these things and the reasons why a lot of dancers from her perspective are not sharing these injuries and why some of these injuries get worse for these dancers and, of course, a few other things.
This injury just basically opened our eyes to [00:18:00] some of the other, issues that my dancer was experiencing, which helped us to kind of be on this pathway of figuring out more so that, we can support her body better in this, in this condition, in this situation. So additionally, what else we learned from this entire process is that, number one, we have to trust our gut.
And, that also means that, okay, if it felt like the surgery was really not the thing to do in the moment, we were not going to get swayed by the doctor. And if the doctor didn't agree with us, we were prepared to go to a second opinion. And I think that is so, so important
I used to be, in the same boat that I- the doctor would tell me something, and I would totally agree without doing more of my own research, because it would make sense in the moment, and they have their credentials, and why [00:19:00] shouldn't I believe them? You know, you go to the doctor. You don't go get a medical degree and then go to the doctor.
So the doctors and the professionals are there so that they can do their job, right? But at the same time, it's important for us to question certain things, and especially question certain conventional ways. Because the reality of the situation is that majority of these doctors are not trained on, on how to approach dancers, okay?
That's number one thing. Yes, they can approach athletes, but for athletes, there's slightly different way that they use their body. Slightly is a serious understatement, as you can say. And another thing is a lot of times The future outcomes are really not considered. "Oh, we'll just put pins here, and we'll fix the foot this way, and it will be fine."
Well, no, because how do you expect a dancer [00:20:00] to dance, in pointe shoes with pins in her toes? I don't think that's going to have a very long-lasting career, right? So having other options to be explored first would make sense. Now, obviously, if there's a severe injury that requires additional intervention like this, there's still other options out there, and that's what I always say is that there's never just one way to do it.
There's never one solution to any of these medical issues. I mean, could it be the best solution? Yes, absolutely, and I agree with that. But does it have to be the one and only solution? Absolutely not. And that's why I feel like I owe it to my kid to ensure that we try everything possible that is non-invasive before we start cutting and drilling and, God knows what else the whole [00:21:00] processes have in mind.
And even for situations like, the torn meniscus. You know, we were explained that the surgery doesn't have to be extensive, but it would still be more of an explor- exploratory type of surgery because, it's the unknown that while they can see things on MRI, it wasn't entirely clear the extent of the injury and all these other things.
And exploratory surgery basically means you go in, and you dig, and you see. And while, yes, that's cool, and you could find some things to fix, also, it could be detrimental if a patient has some issues, some underlying conditions. And the truth is, a lot of dancers seem to be having these issues, with their connective tissue, but they just don't know about it.
And the reason why I say this is because I'm actually quite surprised. It has never come to my attention before. But as we've been dealing with the connective tissue questions for, [00:22:00] about, nine months now, I've never seen so many parents come forward and so many dancers experiencing these issues.
And if you don't question that as well, because a lot of times you say, "Oh yeah, this is the injury," nobody's going to look further. And asking, "Well, why would it happen? Could it have happened if there was some other underlying conditions?" would there be more chance that that would happen?
And then going down that rabbit hole, in a way, it's important because it will inform the process, not just for the surgery right now. Because, if the kid bleeds a little bit more, there's, healing issues as it is, going in and doing an exploratory surgery elevates the chances of that small meniscus injury becoming bigger problem kind of goes up, and those chances [00:23:00] are, I don't know if I really want to take those chances without trying everything else first.
Now, if that's the only option left on the table at this point, then yes, then we follow through, and then we do all the other precautions to ensure that that potential side effect is going to be as minimal as possible. But if we're just looking at, okay, this is the option, this is what's given, and, you know, if I never asked about the conservative solution I would not have been offered that.
I mean, that's the situation. That is the case for the regular, medicine. majority of offices are not going to look at it from integrative perspective. They're not going to look at it from the holistic perspective either. They're going to say, "This is the problem.
This is how we deal with it, because that's how we're trained." There's nothing malicious about it. It's just that they know how to deal with these kind of mechanistic, injuries in the mechanical way, and [00:24:00] that's how they're trained. They're not trained to look at the whole person.
They're not trained to, find alternative options and to do more research. If you're seeing something is torn as a surgeon, you've been trained to go and sew it up. You're not trained to go in and put some herbs around it, you know? That's why for them it sounds crazy. Now, it would sound as crazy if you were to go to an herbalist and expect them to give you options for surgeries, right?
I mean, it's the same crazy. It is on us as dance parents if we want to provide as many options to our dancers for healing, and it's up to us to figure this out. And I know it sounds like a very daunting task, but that's why Thriving Dancers is here. I mean, the reality is that it is overwhelming, and I've been through all of that as well, and I'm sure there's gonna be more.
And the truth is that [00:25:00] some of it is kind of rinse and repeat. I mean, there are certain homeopathics. There are certain herbs. The dietary situation is all the same. I mean, it's basically pretty much the same apart from certain variations, right? I mean, if you have a soft tissue injury, it's kind of one path, and then if it's a bone injury, it's a slightly different path, and et cetera.
So, you know, we can adjust, but we still have to know all the other components of the injury. And, there are so many reasons why injuries happen, and that is a very, very important part of this whole puzzle that the general, orthopedic surgeons or, any sports medicine docs, they don't really ask that because they care about, okay, how injury happened so that they know whether...
So what I recommend as a first step is to find an orthopedic professional, orthopedic doctor who is versed in dance, [00:26:00] someone who is, who has that knowledge about dancers. Makes a huge difference.
From that point, having to explore different options. There are so many different modalities out there, and we will be talking about this in, in, in future podcasts. I plan on bringing quite a few, professionals and, and specialists, in all of these various areas. So we will talk about it, but, you know, if your dancer gets injured, you can't wait till the next podcast episode, right?
having that information is also very important. And we have our newsletter issue that talked about some options last week. So if you're not in our newsletter, definitely sign up so that you can be getting all these tips, and you also have to, all the previous issues.
So if you miss something, no worries, you can still go back and find all of those issues that you may be interested in. So finding an orthopedics, professional specialist who is versed in dance is [00:27:00] really super important. Then understanding how the injury happened and why the injury had happened is very important.
for example, for my dancer, one of the things that is, an issue for her is she has, her feet and her connective tissue, issues are kind of throwing her off balance. there are certain things that are out of alignment, and that lack of alignment is what caused slight, bad adjustment of the knee that basically causes the whole entire hip also to go off, and the whole leg basically goes in the wrong direction, and she ends up buckling her knee, and that is what, ends up causing that tear.
That is her situation. Now, we would not have really known that had we never asked the questions of, "Okay, well, what else could possibly cause this type of an injury?" I mean, it seems like not, not a very [00:28:00] commonplace type of, type of an injury unless you have some of these other potential issues, like hypermobility, for example.
And a lot of dancers have, hypermobility, and not the kind that is trained, but the kind that they're born with, in a way. And that is something that is extremely important, and we're going to talk about hypermobility, most definitely in our podcast in a future, episode because it is one of those things that for some reason I see that either nobody's talking about it or everybody's talking about it.
And when everybody's talking about it, they're still not saying what needs to be said. So I am definitely going to focus on that in the future episodes. So anyway, for this particular injury, other lesson that we've learned is in addition to finding a dance-savvy specialist, in orthopedics, is to be your dancer's [00:29:00] advocate and really push and explore non-invasive options first if they are appropriate, right?
And I've seen people say, "Well, we've tried everything, and you know, if you try everything, then just go for surgery." Well, what does everything really mean? And I don't mean, like, taking years for the child to be in pain and then constantly doing this conservative treatment. What I mean is to have the conservative treatment process that is going to attack this injury from various perspectives and, and then seeing what is the most conservative Option one, next, as the next level.
So for us it was, okay, we're going to stay off the injury. We're going to try all of these, the home protocols I mentioned. And then, if things work out, then we're moving [00:30:00] on. if there's still some pain, then we're going to see if an, arthroscopic, surgery is going to be better.
and then from that we are going to see if something even more invasive is absolutely necessary, right? So there's these tiers that we can explore, and that is very important because first of all, it gives you peace of mind that you are trying everything you truly can. second of all, it gives you a clear path of where you are actually headed, right?
And third of all, your dancer also has kind of these timelines in mind so they don't have to freak out about, "Well, when? When am I gonna get back to dance?" or, "When am I gonna dance? When can I do this? When can I do this?" And, that kind of gives the whole family a little bit of a breathing room, right?
And, the one last thing that I think the lesson that has come out of it all is truly that, you know, the body does heal. It is the [00:31:00] most intelligent, amazing software and hardware that we could possibly have, and nobody heals it except for us. And so feeding it and giving it all that could possibly set the environment for it to heal, that is the most essential thing.
And when we do that, even the crazy injuries like meniscus get healed that would not require a surgery. So, having that belief that from the very start I just knew she would not need a surgery, not because it was a small tear or any of that, because, those things, they can go either way.
It was more like this knowing that I've decided that we're going to do everything possible to set her body to heal it properly. And that end result, what we wanted is what has come out. That intention to [00:32:00] heal the body in this way was so powerful. And, sometimes we just say, "Oh, it's just this woo stuff," or whatever.
Yes, sure, positive thinking is great. It is, but it is also energetically essential that if you have a dancer who walks in pain, who forgot how to be without pain, and doesn't know when they can get back to dance, whether their dream is done or not, and going in for surgeries or not, or have to take pain medications that makes them all brain fogged or whatever it is that, that hope can start getting drained.
But if we keep this anchor within us for them And give that to them so that if they can't believe it in the moment, they can borrow our belief. I mean, that's what moms are for, right? We believe in our kids to no end. And, for dance moms, that's kind of next level, [00:33:00] especially dance moms of injured dancers.
Whoof, that's a whole new level of belief that we have to provide for our kids. And having that for them is essential because there have been a lot of studies done on seeing, okay, well, what does that doctor's belief... For example, there have been studies done where, patients would go to two types of doctors.
two groups of patients would go to two different kinds of doctors. Those who believed that that patient is going to recover well versus the ones that were just, like, mechanical, you know, "Just take this, just take this." Either had no opinion or also had this kind of like, "Well, you know, here's the prognosis, here's the diagnosis."
those who had the doctors who believed in the recovery actually recovered faster. If we can believe that our dancers are going to recover well, our dancers will believe that. And then the dancer's body will [00:34:00] believe that, and then it will have that energetic opportunity and system and physiology created for that injury to heal.
And, you know, there's just a lot to be said about the power of intention, and it's not just the positive thinking. There's so much, neurochemistry that happens when we are thinking these thoughts. And from that, we've got the neuropeptides that are literally in every single cell of our body that are coming in and, activating all these various signals, whether it's positive or negative.
So, you know, we get to choose how we derive our body system towards something that we want or something that we are afraid of. So, you know, believing that our dancers can heal is another big component to it, and I definitely... It was tough, a few times, for sure. And there was a moment where, we wanted to lose hope.
But the reality is that [00:35:00] We g-got back to it, and it did work out the way we planned for it. And I don't-- I no longer believe in just luck. there is such thing as very specific intention, and there are the very specific actions. And if we have that intention, then we will be put on the path to those actions.
So that's what we did, and I really hope that this episode is going to shine some light on some of the options that you have as a dance mom, and that you have absolute right to be that advocate. You are the authority on your, on your dancer's, wellness. And so you get to make those choices together with your dancer, but informed choices.
hopefully Thriving Dancers can provide that for you, in addition to send you on the path of where you can find more information, who you can talk to, and, also, you know, why are we talking [00:36:00] to these professionals. And there's a whole bunch of different professionals, different things that we can do.
So don't get overwhelmed because once you understand exactly what the issues are, then you can start working toward, resolving them. Okay. So that's what I have for you for today. hopefully this was helpful. as always, if you have any questions or comments, either, DM through the Instagram @thrivingdancersco, or you can also email.
it would be team@thrivingdancers.com. And also definitely sign up for the newsletter, 'cause we do talk a lot about things here, but then it's also nice to see things in writing. I love PDFs.
I keep on making PDFs out of everything, and hopefully you get to benefit from that. Well, until next time, and I wish you and your dancers all the very best.
