ACL reconstruction

[coachjvinson]

I wanted to take a minute to post on progress - 9wks post op +/-
Took longer than anticipated to have surgery - ( months longer ) during this time I took great measures to protect the integrity of the knee through bracing - used both a bledsoe and a donjoy - I like both for different reasons - the typical store bought types are not enough - also prehab work with PT was hugely beneficial

Chose patellar tendon autograph and a surgeon that performs them regularly - the important justification was the bone to bone graph healing time and strength as compared to a hamstring autograph or cadaver allographs -also we used bio composite screws instead if titanium

initially, the anticipation of having my patellar tendon dissected to harvest the graph concerned me, but as far as post operative pain and discomfort this was not as much of an issue as the procedure to repair the ACL - the majority of my pain and discomfort was associated with the tunnel sites.

we had the swelling down and controlled well within 9 days by keeping cryo packs 9"x18" on top and bottom of the leg lengthwise within the immobilized brace. As soon as the 2 packs refroze, we repacked the leg. Sometimes right at first we used 1 at a time and alternated to keep it cold longer - after the dressings came off I kept a sleeve on the leg (road bike legging) to keep from freezing the skin - icing was and is still very important

Dr utilized the Duke rehab protocol - so far everything is going well - with an emphasis on protecting the graph - I can see where people could go wrong by doing too much too soon -

[coachjvinson]

Thank you for all of you posts, input, and time
~V