Diary of a grade 2 ACL tear and Meniscus tear

[wildstyle]

greeting fellow gimps. I now join your ranks.

i was skiing in engleberg the other week and managed to crash in an identical manner on the identical leg while bolted into bindings that were too hardcore. Old story.

i was carving a right hand turn on a steep slope in warmed up slightly sticky snow when my right ski caught in the snow and came off leaving me on the left ski pointing directly down the fall line debating which way to fall. I 'decided' each time that a forward roll would be the most painful and executed it perfectly. At the end of the second day, the knee had swollen up a bit, not balloon big but you knew it was not happy. I had my physio girlfriend have a look at it and she said get some ice on that now. So i did. There was no pain, only weird pressure feeling from having so much swelling in the knee itself .

i didn't ski the rest of the holiday and let the swelling go down. The knee hasn't felt fully stable since. I'm going to get it scanned and then get on some quad strengthening programme that my girlfriend has devised.

From looking at it after the swelling has gone down, it looks like a grade I or II ACL tear. This means there is a little play in the knee ( <1cm ) when doing the standard ACL test. The PCL seems to be fine as are the MCL and LCL.

The Meniscus seems to have a light tear in it as well but there is no locking of the knee and i feel no pain.

So far, so good. It could have been much worse but i have weakened the knee significantly.

I start my exercises on wednesday.

[Kempes]

Not sure I quite follow your diagnostic techniques. How are you 'looking' at your knee to determin meniscus tear and ACL tear?

From my experience ACL is tricky to diagnose. MRI, overall assesment of knee stability and ultimately arthroscopy may result in educated ACL reconstruction (or not) recommendation. Major grade II from what I understand may fool flexity test, is unlikely to heal and does not provide stability in the knee.

[wildstyle]

Not sure I quite follow your diagnostic techniques. How are you 'looking' at your knee to determin meniscus tear and ACL tear?

From my experience ACL is tricky to diagnose. MRI, overall assesment of knee stability and ultimately arthroscopy may result in educated ACL reconstruction (or not) recommendation. Major grade II from what I understand may fool flexity test, is unlikely to heal and does not provide stability in the knee.

"I had my physio girlfriend have a look at it...."