My surgeon is one of those brilliant, perky guys. Made it sound like 1-2-3, it’s over and you’re on your way. Then the pt’s got into it, the details began to emerge, and the picture ended up being different than it originally sounded. Not that he’s a bad guy. Just makes the recovery sound faster than it really is.
My surgeon owns the pt unit, so they all share the files. The same should be true for you as well, regardless of whether or not your work is in-house. Before my release they had a group consult, and my marching orders were drawn up. The upshot? No riding for one year from the end of pt. Period. That puts it to the end of July 2011 for me. Evidently this also holds true for runners who have had knee surgery as well. Walking, biking (no mountain bikes), swimming, and in some cases golf are all fine in the interim.
My thought here is that while the surgeon knows the inner workings of the body part and the overall outcome, the pt’s work more closely and more often with us and have a better sense of how each of our particular bodies move, where we are in our progress and how long the actual healing will take place. Knees usually take about one year to fully heal, so they don’t want me screwing up their work. I was expecting the schedule to be no riding one year from the date of initial treatment, not one year from the date of release from pt. I was pretty bummed, but I don’t want to end up having salvage surgery, so I am abiding by their orders. When you decide to get on the horse perhaps walking without stirrups would be a good place to start?
P.S Tell the pt about the toe-first landing pain. You wouldn’t believe the number of exercises they can dream up to work around just about anything that comes up.
