Having surgery on 12/4 to repair a torn ACL and am a little nervous. Mostly about the rehab. I’ve heard it’s tough!
Please share your stories,good and bad. I want to hear it all!
My dear friend had to have ACL surgery in both knees. The MD actually used ACLs from cadavers. My friend is doing great. Her rehab was not super tough or super long. She’s back to riding with no problems. One knee was actually her second ACL repair.
My brother tore his ACL over 20 years ago. He was 16 at the time and his growth plates hadn’t closed, so they just did Arthroscopic surgery and removed stuff. I don’t know all the details, as I was only 8 at the time. I do know he has no ACL in that knee. He had to build up muscle to support the knee. He hurt it in the spring in lacrosse and was back and ready to start football in August. He was an avid skier and did not have to give that up. His biggest ordeal from the ACL tear is that colleges stopped scouting him for football.
Think part of it depends on age. I was 52 (torn meniscus and calf muscle too). Did 3 months of PT before surgery (Hopkins doc, Orioles team physician). Six months of PT, three times a week after. Rehab wasn’t easy and my surgeon takes your crutches away really early!
Four years later, knee is “almost” as good as it was. I’m a lot more careful with that knee, though. But, I also have chronic lyme disease, so that also enters into the whole equation. T
Wore my ACL brace for 1 1/2 years when doing anything physical.
I had ACL surgery 4 years ago also with a tendon from a cadaver. I did one month of PT prior to the surgery and then 8 weeks of PT 3xs per week post op. I was riding 6 weeks after surgery.
After the surgery for about 4 weeks my surgeon had me in a brace but none after that point.
I had a riding lesson about 3 months after surgery. My trainer had ACL surgery about 1 year before I had surgery. At one point she commented about my right leg swinging back a little and that it would take time to regain my strength in my leg after the surgery but my left leg looked good and solid. My ACL surgery was on the left knee.
I never found that the ACL surgery impacted my riding once it was fixed.
It does still get a little achey in the cold but other than that it is fine.
The PT was no fun. I did wind up in tears a few times. I did not tolerate the electric stimulation AT ALL. I could barely tolerate the TENS unit.
The doctor was very free with the pain killers. Extended release Oxycotin every 2 hours with a percocet every 4 hours on top of it. I slept a lot. My doctor wanted me to take the pills so that I would be more inclined to do my home PT exercises. They also wanted me to sleep a lot- rest/sleep is a great healer. I found that if I took the painkillers with a little pudding then they didn’t upset my stomache.
At the risk of TMI I found that because of the painkillers I needed Senokot. Start taking them before you NEED them.
I’ve done both knees. One soccer and one basketball. One cadaver and one patellar graft. Cadaver was much easier to recover from and less painful but research has shown it is not as strong over long term. No matter how much rehab I have done it usually took me a year to feel close to normal and two years to gain back balance. (I was a D1 athelete running 15 miles a day prior to injury and rehabbing 8hrs a day 7 days a week and it still took time.) I’ve also had two other surgeries to scope and clean out scar tissue.
Morphine drip with petallar graft. A couple days of advil with cadaver graft. I really don’t like pain killers. I did run five 5Ks this year, two years post last reconstruction.
