All of this talk of surgically removing the irritated tissue begs the question, how did the plica get there in the first place? It got there because the knee cap isn’t tracking well in it’s groove, so cutting it out surgically makes about as much common sense as cutting off the callouses on your hands because you work in the garden! If a surgeon is telling you need a plica cut out, spend some time trying to figure out the cause of why your knee cap tracking might be off and/or looking at treatments for bad patellofemoral tracking. Another potential solution is ramping up repair in the knee by adding growth factors or stem cells. The upshot? IMHO plicas are the end result of another problem, so cutting them out rather than addressing the issue that caused them makes no sense. Think about it this way. Let’s say the tires on your car are wearing unevenly and your car is pulling to one side. You decide to solve the problem by cutting off the thick parts of your tires to create a balanced ride rather than investigating why the tries are wearing unevenly in the first place! True Plica recovery isn’t usually surgical, it’s bio mechanical or biologic.
