A brief history since the injury:
Sept '08 - During one ultimate frisbee game, cutting one way then doing a 270 turn and a full sprint, gave a loud pop as I fully tore my ACL, partially tore my mcl,lcl, and pcl, and a large tear + displacement of my lateral meniscus.
April '09 - ACL reconstruction surgery using quadrupled Hamstring tendons, plus removing 60% of my lateral meniscus.
- For the next 10 days I had an immobilizer + crutches, and I was allowed to ditch one or the other (not both).
- After that, I was allowed to ditch both the crutches and immobilizer.
- Standard rehab for the next 2 months.
- Started light jogging at 3 months.
- At 4 months, started plyometric routines + more quicker agility stuff.
- Started personal training at 4.5 months post op, 2 days a week (about 5 times as intense as physio)
- Received the green light for sports at 6 months post op. Started playing Ultimate Frisbee again
Problems that arose and their fixes:
- 3-4 days after surgery, I had immense pain when standing up. This was apparently due to blood rushing. Massaging the affected area helped relieve this pain. Problem went away on its own in 5-6 days.
- At 7 Weeks I had a large amount of pain on the outer side of the knee when walking. I started using a foam roller to massage my IT band and the problem went away within a few days.
- At 7-8 weeks post op, my knee starting catching when going from straight leg to a bent one. This affected walking. My physio guessed this was the inflamed bursa sacks or possibly scar tissue. Stretching the quads helped stop this from occuring for a bit. (although it would eventually come back). It wasn't until about 7+ months post op that I stopped noticing the problem.
- Tingling in toes. This actually started before surgery. Sometimes my middle toe on the injured leg would start tingling. I never found out what caused it but I haven't felt it in the past 3-4 months. I even forgot about it until I re-read parts of my blog.
- ~ 8.5 months post op, I had a little bit of swelling a day after an ultimate game. I took a break for a week and tried to run again, but started feeling very strong pain around my kneecap when running (even a light jog). Doc said a weak inner quad muscle + tight IT band was probably the problem. I had my trainer focus a lot more on the inner quad. 3 Weeks later I was fine running again and the swelling hasn't returned.
- Knee feels fine when running / jumping.
- No more swelling
- Large tennis-ball size area around incision is still partially numb.
- Inner Quad is looking damn good.
- Surgical leg is still smaller than good leg.
- Still seeing a trainer twice a week
- I'm still very nervous when I first step out onto the field of an ultimate frisbee game.
- I'm still somewhat cautious cutting while an opponent is close by.
- I was able to walk 4 hours without any problems.
- Starting in May I'll be playing Ultimate 3 times a week. It'll be great to play again in nice sunny weather!
- I'll be seeing a trainer once a week to keep my legs strong.
Although I'm not at the same level I was before the injury, I'm happy to be playing Ultimate Frisbee again. Sure, there are still issues: knee clicking, cracking, stuff moving around, knee getting stiff when standing for long periods. But overall, I can't complain.
Time to enjoy the summer!
9 comments:
This is a good post. I am now three days out and the pain has gone down a bit. I see the doctor tomorrow and start PT on Tuesday, so hopefully I receive some news about my progress timeline. Did you have trouble sleeping without pain meds the first few days out?
I didn't have much pain without the meds (except when standing up). Most of my troubles sleeping was the immobilizer that I had to wear (along with the cryocuff).
However, I had the hamstring graft, which historically is a fair amount less painful than the patella one.
Keep up your ROM, as it's the most important thing!
Hey Andrew,
I have a feeling they don't tell you how sore your big scar/where they stitch your ligament in will be when you stop taking the pain killers. It sucked for me so much -- I couldn't stand at all.
I'm now 6 months post op. Blackfish Tryouts are Tuesday. I've been cleared for drills but not scrim yet.
I'm doing this awesome program called "On Field" (http://www.onfieldclinic.com/). I tried playing a point at a college practice at the beginning of March. I was totally freaked out. I had no confidence or control when stopping/turning.
Shortly after, I started doing On Field. One month later I'm 100% confident. I feel stronger and faster than I was. There's still weakness in the knee -- I know there's certain movements I used to do that I can't any longer. That's ok though, because they teach you the most stable ways to start/stop/speed up/slow down/turn.
I highly recommend it. I don't know for a fact, but I'm guessing the program is like CrossFit where you can license it and run it anywhere. I'm sure some physios teach it in your area.
Thanks for the link! Not sure they have it near Toronto though. I'll have to ask around.
Cheers,
Great blog. Lot of useful information for anyone else going through the same issues.
Curious to know how much the recovery has cost you financially. Have you had to pay for any medication, physio, equipment, etc?
Glad to hear you've made a full recovery and you've been able to get back to doing what you love.
Cheers bro,
Aaron
I had to pay for Physio, Chiropractor, meds, and crutches.
After injury it was probably around ~$400 a month for physio for about 2-3 months
After Surgery it was ~$400 a month (physio + chiro) for 4 months.
So in total
$1200 - before surgery physio
$1600 - after surgery physio + chiro
$200 - random equipment for physio at home and meds.
So around $3000
Now at about 4.5 months post-op my physio released me "you don't have to come back anymore". I started seeing a personal trainer. Now, this isn't really required, but I felt it was important (I wanted my legs really strong to prevent future injuries). He was $50 for 1/2 an hour. I saw him 2 days a week for about 5-6 months. So that'd be another $400 a month,
So, optional, I paid another $2000+ for personal training.
Now I just see him one day a week ($200 a month), to keep my leg strong.
Thanks,
Andrew
Andrew,
I came across your blog when looking to find someone who had the same symptoms as me post knee surgery. I had an ACL reconstruction 18 months ago, developed scar tissue and have just had the scar tissue taken out (alongside a trimming of the lateral meniscus). I have had a long gap between surgeries due to pregnancy and after my first surgery it was about 10 months before I could walk more than about 100 metres due to all the complications I developed. Since my second surgery, I have re-developed a catching of the kneecap when I go from a straight leg to a bent one. This means I can only walk "properly" very very slowly. If I walk with my leg slightly bent at all times, I am fine, although eventually my calf starts hurting from the unnaturalness of it all.
My PT says I just need to strengthen the quad and it will go. After my first surgery, it was months and months before this sensation disappeared, but I think it wasn't as bad a second time round.
Is this what you describe in your blog? Could you give a few more details on it? Do you have an understanding of what it was all about and what helped you recover?
Thank you!
Anna
Hi Anna,
The catching sensation felt like something was stopping my knee from bending. My Chiropractor said it was probably the fat pad underneath the knee cap getting stuck (or inflamed bursa). To this day I can still feel some resistance but it's nowhere near as bad as it was before.
One other thing to note is my catching occured even if my weight wasn't on my leg. For instance, while the chiro guy was working my leg, he could cause it to catch just by straightening and bending quickly.
When it bugged me when walking, I'd stop and stretch my quad (heel to butt). That usually solved it for 10 minutes or so.
I don't entirely know why it went away, although I did a *lot* of strengthening exercises (with a higher focus on the inner quad). I'm actually still seeing a personal training to keep my legs strong (and this is almost 2 years post op).
Hope that helps,
Cheers,
Andrew
Hello Andrew,
Thank you so much for replying. It sounds like we have the same thing – I too can make it catch by moving the knee very quickly without weight bearing. But it is at its worst when the weight is on it as I bend it from straight. I think an inflammation of the bursa sack or fat pad could well be it, as after my first surgery by patellar tendon got totally stuck down with scar tissue and it was months before we got it moving again with massage. Logically, it will have got stuck to one of those two parts. At the same time, the catching of the patellar started. I guess I probably have a weakness there that just resurfaced.
It's encouraging that read that you are back doing sport and it's just sorted itself out – possibly due to the quad strengthening. It's hard to find anybody on the internet with a knee complication that's outside the usual script who doesn't have horror story that descends into 8 operations and a total knee replacement.
Anna
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