a few years ago. Partial tear, but enough pain to feel it doing normal stuff like walking. Doc gave me a steroid shot and that did wonders for the pain. I focused on strength training to support my knee. Losing some weight also helped. For what I do, I'd say I'm at about 90%. If I was to get into running again, I might have issues, but I have no intention of doing that. I walk, hike, ski, wakeboard, basketball and tennis occasionally, and am able to do all that almost pain free.

Basically, let pain, or lack thereof, be your guide.

Also, I found this interesting: doc said if they randomly MRI'd people over 45, you'd probably see half with some sort of tear. Some partial tears don't necessarily cause pain either.