ACL recovery (8 months later)

A

AMZ

New member
Hey guys, I had acl surgery about 8 months ago. I'm not sure what the exact name of the surgery was but they removed a strip of the muscle ontop of my knee cap and replace my ACL with that. Last time i saw the doctor in February i was told that things were going very well, my knee was super stable, even more than my other one lol, and i could resume playing sports in april/may, and to also listen to how my knee feels. Anywho i decided to go outside yesterday and give street hockey a try. To play it safe, i used my knee brace. (its a really good knee brace, the one they make specifically for your knee, the doc prescribed that and i used that when my ACL was torn to continue playing ball hockey). So playing hockey went well yesterday, and even though i was really out of shape since it was the first time in 8 month's ive played, my knee felt good and i didnt have any problems at all. Later that night, and this morning it's a different story. The inside of my knee feels fine, it's just the muscle on top of my knee cap that feels weak and is sore. I iced it for a half hour last night before going to bed. Is this somethign i should worry about? Am i not ready to play? or is it just the fact that i havent played in over 7 or 8 months and that's the reason it's sore? How can i build the strength or help the healing of this muscle?

Thanks in Advance,
Joey
 
I would just call the orhto who did your surgery to find out if this is really just a normal part of kind of getting back into the swing of things(it very well could be0 or if he feels tht this could indicate some sort of damage.in all probability,you could possibly have just over done things a bit.i too am dealing with some rather nasty knee issues right now.I had to have two seperate surgeries done onthe same flippin knee just within 21 days of each other,the thing is,when yourr knee has not been used in the 'normal" way,with all of the muscles being allowed to actually move as they are supposed to when the all work together,they tend to get very "laxed" and rather atrophied rather quickly.I do believe that they say for every one day that your body part is emobilized and not being fully used,it will take like one week to regain back what was actually lost while healing.i know for sure that it doesn't take long for the atrophy to start up.

also if your knee was emobilized for any length of time at all,the ligaments,tendons and the muscles will all be a bit more risky as far as becomming damaged during use,ebven ith a brace on.they are just too laxed right now and up to par.usually ,for the type of surgery you described,alot of docs will send their patients for at least a few weeks of physical therepy and doing specific excercises to try and get back all that was lost.this needs to be done gradually and over time.I amstill doing all my leg and knee excercises to try and get back some better tone.my knee will never be normal again but I still need to keep everything in it and around it in the best shape possible in order to lessen the possibility of an injury.

i would just call your othos office and tell them what you explained here and see what they have to say about it.are you still seeing the surgeon for any more follow ups?if so,you can discuss all of this with him/her when you see them again.just be very careful and do not over do it.its kinda hard sometimes when things start to finally feel much better but you are still healing and are still much more susceptable to injury.just take things slow or you will be going thru yet one more surgery like I had to only 21 days after the first one becuase i tore the inner stiches because of severe leg spasms caused by my spinal cord injury.it didn't take much for this to just rip out the inner stitches.just give it some time.good luck and please keep me posted on how things are hoing.FB
 
My husband had the same surgery done a little over 6 years ago and even with physical therapy it took a long time to get back to normal, if you would say. The mane thing that helped him was working out to strengthening the muscles, but do it slowly. I cannot remember how long it took him to get it almost 100%, but I do remember it was a while. Hope this is helpful.
 
Back
Top