Squat and Meniscus injury

[^pala]

Hello Rip!
I have opened an thread with similar subject in the other forums, but I didn't get much attention, but most importantly, your attention, which I really need ( I hope).

I have had an Meniscus injury in latest May 09, where they made stitches to the meniscus (they said it was an very big tear, from an 30 mins surgery and 1 doctor plan, it ended up 2 hours and 5 doctors)
I had to wear Breg Post for month and a half, with switching angels on it every 2 weeks. I've also had a lot of Physiotherapy and monthly visits with my Surgery doctors.
A little information about my knee status: Don't have full full range, as in, I can't bend over 130 angel, yet. Also follows a lot of pain if I try to go over it, or get near that angle. Have pains when I twist it, but other than that the knee seems fine.

I'm now about 10 months after the injury, doing squats for 3 weeks so far. I'm doing SS, and started with an empty olympic, and added the smallest plates every week, since my knee was still very weak. It has gone pretty well for me, until two things happened:
1) I had my last and least visit with my surgery doctor which said squats can injure my stitched meniscus, due to bending, however the chances aren't too big, and he wouldn't recommend it, but niether will he limit me from doing it
2) the weights started to be heavy. I'm now doing overall 45KG (sorry euro) and it's not that heavy for my legs, however it's hard for my knee. When I'm about to go below parallel, it's extremely painful, and maybe the heavy weights can cause damages to my meniscus again? (The doctor said my meniscus is now much more vulnerable and can tear much faster or easier)

Now, what can I do? Shall I stop Squat? Shall I go down in weight(I can still feel it working on my legs with such weight) Shall I add another exercise...What is your opition, Rip? As I have heard, you have a lot of meniscus injury experience. Please help me solve this, I would love to continue doing squats and SS.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Squats will be fine if you do them correctly. I will try to help you with a coach.

[^pala]

Squats will be fine if you do them correctly. I will try to help you with a coach.

Hmmm, so with the right technic(?), there ain't any harm to the meniscus? As in, I shouldn't be afraid of going deep with the leg?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Many people with meniscus tears squat just fine, including me. But they must be done correctly.