Welcome to the over 30's club! I say this with personal experience of knee pain and a story similar to yours.
Cartilage injury around the front of the knee can be quite painful and limit activity, particularly if you enjoy running and jumping sports.
Seeing a physiotherapist is important in such situations as they can help identify specific muscle weaknesses. In addition a Sports Physician can help by providing various treatments such as visco-supplementation, where a synthetic form of hyaluronic acid is injected into the knee for pain symptoms, and also a sports podiatrist can help assess your gait, particularly if you are a keen runner.
Having spoken to a sports knee surgeon, options for cartilage injuries such as this include a lateral release, if you have tilting of the patella, trimming away of the injured cartilage or trying to promote healing through other interventions. The main issue with surgical intervention is the post-op period (trust me) it takes ages to get back to normality!
This give you a number of options to start with - I hope it helps.
BW
Dr Dinesh
