Is it bad to do this? Thanks!
It’s not ideal. I did it before I learned it was a full tear. Posting and cantering were no issue but getting up on the mounting block and swinging my leg over were dicey. Dismounting is the most dangerous part. I’d be very careful.
Finally went in to get it formally diagnosed and had the surgery a month later. It would have never healed by itself.
1 Like
Thanks for the information!
1 Like
Good luck. Hope it’s not you with the ACL injury.
I hobbled around for years with a torn ACL and meniscus. The other posters are correct, any movement where you land in that leg is dicey. I did ride, hike etc but was always aware it could buckle on me.
I had surgery over a year ago. I was riding in 3 months. I am glad I had it. The recovery was tough. I am super careful to prevent re-injury.
2 Likes
It’s my riding buddy. I’m trying to convince her to get it looked at by a sports doctor.
If your friend is COTH savvy, I have a thread about my ACL tear. Like @NJRider I hobbled around for months blowing it off. It just made it worse. They don’t tend to heal well outside of surgery.
Recovery was tough, stay ahead of the pain and stay on top of physical therapy. I was back to riding in three months just like NJRider. Back to hockey within six months to the horror of my surgeon. That was five years ago. No regrets.
2 Likes
I lived with one for 15 years, from when I was 15 years old until I was 30. I didn’t want to get it fixed when it first happened because arthroscopic surgery hadn’t been invented yet. I put up with it dislocating fairly regularly all those years. It was awful–more painful than unmedicated childbirth.
It has not dislocated again since I had the surgery. That was 36 years ago. I have a lot of muscle atrophy that always hurts, from favoring that leg for all those years before it was fixed.
I highly advise fixing this type of injury as soon as possible. Don’t do what I did!
Rebecca
2 Likes
I tore my ACL and MCL last March. The physio told me that pain is a yes/no question with these injuries: if it hurts, don’t do it. There are no “levels of pain” if you want to heal well.
At first it hurt to post the trot, so I only sat. But after a month or so, nothing hurt when riding.
EDITED TO ADD: I also wore a hard hinged brace all the time, switching to a softer brace for riding.
1 Like
Christ no, just don’t. I’m booked for surgery on Friday for my ACL. I also managed to tear my meniscus and end up with a displaced fracture.
My doctor arranged for a hinged brace that I wore for several months full time and any time I was doing something that might aggravate it (walking over rough ground, in snow) for over a year. I rode in the brace with the inside hinge removed. That helped support the leg as I swung it over to mount and dismount. And I didn’t ride anything too foolish. Riding buddy should definitely get it looked at by at sports medicine doctor. Better to know if you definitely need surgery or if more conservative therapy is an option. In 20 years they will be glad they took care of that knee!
2 Likes
Wow. I hope it goes well!
It really depends. I tore my right ACL when I was 13, and my left ACL when I was 15. Both times, I had reconstructive surgery. When I was 22, I re-tore my left ACL. At the time, I had just moved to NYC and started my career. I really did not want to go through surgery again. I couldn’t imagine navigating the city on crutches, and I was away from family or anyone who could support me while I recovered from surgery. I also thought, if I re-tore it once, who’s to say I won’t tear it again? Fortunately, the doctor I met with did not pressure me into surgery and suggested PT instead. She pointed me to a clinical trial that followed people with ACL tears who had surgery plus PT, vs PT alone, and found the outcomes were similar. Strength training was a game changer for me. In my previous surgeries, I don’t think I got very good quality PT (either that, or my parents didn’t take it that seriously and just stopped taking me?). But the PT I got in my 20s was very good, and I built up muscles in my lower body to stabilize the joint in lieu of depending on the ligament to do it. I think that muscle weakness and some anatomical quirks like hypermobility were part of why I was so vulnerable to ACL tears in the first place, so the PT really addressed that in a way surgery didn’t.
Anyway, all of that to say I’m now 32 and have been living my life and riding all this time with a torn ACL, and it’s not been an issue for me. I do find if I am very fatigued, I have to be careful of the joint—no quick pivots, a concerted effort to engage the right muscles. But this mostly comes up while trail running. Riding is overall not hard on my knees.
5 Likes
That’s fantastic! Thank you.
