ACL History

[pbf]

right in '89 at Mt. Snow. Left in 94 or so at bromley. now i have a frayed/torn meniscus in the left knee but my dr. is a quack and didnt want to do surgery. I gotta get a second opinion, its clicking and catching like crazy. anyone have just a meniscus worked on? ie rehab time.

[here2day]

acl, mcl. lcl. meniscus - 4/1/05 @ mammoth.

allograft 5/29/05 - about 90% back.

[lucubrator]

Left Knee - getting surgery on monday. Many thanks to the people posting about hamstring v. PT surgery. I'm going with the hammy, and hope to be back by april?

[gh444]

oct '99-took a helmet to my right knee, ACL, MCL and LCL, broke my femor(sp) shattered my knee cap and the pattella tendon tore, medial and lateral meniscus tears.

spring of '02-fat guy fell on me, ACL and meniscus again the right knee

july of '03- twisted wrong playing softball, ACL meniscus for the third time on the right knee

so i've had graphs from my hammy, my patella tendon and some dead guy.....


-aaron

[dinesh]

left ACL plus minescus, messed it up laying rugby last march

[telepariah]

I tore my left acl in september of 1981 playing flag football--actually warming up before the first game. I lived in Steamboat at the time and my doc told me that the surgery would be very invasive and risky. He suggested I try PT first and see how well I could do without. He also advised me to give up cutting sports like football, basketball, and soccer. Hoops was the hardest to let go of, but eventually I realized I just can't protect myself in those kinds of sports.

Yet I could protect myself on skis and never ever tweaked it on the slopes. I skied over 100 days that winter and averaged that many days over the next 14 seasons until I married and got a real job. Never used a brace, always jumped, teled, ragdolled over cliffs and in many ways nearly got myself killed, breaking 24 bones in between the acl tear and 2004 but never hurt the knee skiing. Then in February 04, 23 years after I tore the acl, I was out trail-running and the meniscus just shredded itself. I dragged the leg home and was done skiing for that season. But I had time to do pre-surgery PT and that got me good and strong before the surgery. Went in on April 29 for acl, 70% menisectomy, lots of scrapage and suckage of shredded cartilege, and microfracture. The pictures of the inside of my knee looked like fringe.

When my wife got me home from the hospital, I was high on morphine, anesthetic, and had a nerve block in my thigh. I was euphoric and wouldn't go to bed. What fucking JONG I was! The first two weeks were brutal with compartment syndrome setting in and no weight bearing allowed. But at 4 weeks I was walking limp free. I did 2-3 days a week PT and went to the gym every day to regain strength and ROM. My PT told me she was working with a CU football player who could stand on the bongo board and pick up cones from the floor at 12 weeks. I couldn't even balance on the leg at that time. But by 10 weeks I could do the same thing as that football player. I also got all my muscle mass and better ROM back by 12 weeks. At 4 months my PT said if I told her I wanted to ski she would laugh in my face. Two weeks later my doc cleared me to ski, I skied on sand dunes, and never looked back.

My story may not be the norm, but I can say if you have knee surgery, get motivated and competitive about your rehab. Find a good PT and do everything he or she says. Be sure your doc knows how motivated you are and don't waste time getting discouraged.