Constant shin/tibia pain after patella tendon acl autograft..possible causes?

I tore my left acl riding bmx back in june and am about 3 months post op from a patella tendon autograft to repair the damage. Intially my recovery seemed to be going excellent. I had full ROM at 4 weeks, and my leg strengh has is coming back pretty nicely. I did experience some tendonitis, but it has gotten alot better. However, over the last few weeks I have developed a constant pain on the top of my tibia which seems to be getting worse. I intially noticed it only when I was jogging, but now it hurts even just walking.

It feels like someone is jabbing a fork into my shin all the time, and it is extremely frustrating. I suspect and hope it is only due to the screw used to fix the graft to my tibia. However, I had large bump on the top of my tibia that my surgeon decided to shave down during surgery without consulting me beforehand. Apparently the bump was caused from a growth spurt, so I guess it could be classified as osgood schlatters disease, but I never had any shin pain or other symptoms prior to the surgery. Is it possible that my surgeon shaved my tibia too much, and that is causing my pain? Or is it more likely that my pain is caused by my front screw?

Has anybody else here had to have their hardware removed after an acl graft? I have heard that the standard protocol after hardware removal is 8 weeks no weight bearing is this true? That sounds like it could really setback my recovery, and I was hoping to be able to snowboard this winter . My OS is out of town for the next two weeks so if anybody can offer me some insight on the matter I would really appreciate it.
-David

I have the same pain from the same graft 5 months out. My OS said that pain at the harvest site is normal and it should go away with time. It only hurts me after jumping exercises or other intense impact then goes away overnight. It makes some sense to me because not only is there a chunk of bone missing down there but there is less tendon which causes more stress on the bone attachments. I would think any new bone growth would not be totally healed either.

x2 on this pain, 5 months out. As SMP said, it is related to the harvest site, not the hardware. For me it only occurs while runnning and jumping/ impact exercises. I think it has gotten progressively better over the last two months, but I stopped running and went back to cycling as well. No pain with hiking, swimming either.

If it hurts now while walking I'd pull off the jogging and impact exercises until the pain subsides and return to running only on treadmills / soft surfaces for the next few months. I do box jumps/hops every 2-3 days and there is a little discomfort but not what I'd call stick a fork in it pain.

Best of luck, the wating really is the hardest part.

It does make sense that since there is less tendon there is greater stress on the tibia. I have laid off the jogging so hopefully that will help. Thanks for the responses.
-David

I was going to say, lay off the running. its too early. ride bike instead. shouldnt do stuff that hurts. if you do run, should only run on a treadmill or maybe a trail.

my guess is that the work he did to remove the osgood schlatters related calcification is the source of your pain. Shaved down bone like that heals in the same fashion that a fracture would heal. Since you are just 3 mo out now, that is likely what is causing pain with activity. Also joggin at 3 mo could be a little early, back off a tad on the intensity of your workout and see what happens. The achiness will likely decr. Then when your OS is back in town give him a call.

Been there, done that myself:

KNEED IT BRACE

Unfucking believable.