ACL (knee) surgery in 15 days. How should i prepare, and what are the chances it will work out OK?About 1 in a half months ago i tore my right knee ACL. I got my MRI and im now getting surgery in like 15 days. How exactly should i prepare, and if you have recovered from an ACL surgery how exactly should i go along with the recovery. I'm very active in sports and athletics. Has anybody in similar circumstances really struggled in the longterm to get back to 100 percent? Or is it something that I can overcome and bounce back with hard work?
- Amy S
Hello! I tore my acl and got surgery in february. I remember when i looked online there wasn't really anything that really explained what was happening, so i hope i can help you out.
In terms of preparing for the surgery, there really isn't anything you need to do besides the standard stuff that they tell you beforehand like not eating within a certain amount of hours and all that business. I don't know if this will be the case with you but they had me give a urine sample right before so you should make sure you're prepared and will be able to pee in a cup! lol. But for me, they just put some medicine from a needle and a tube into a nerve in my groin and then put me under and when i woke up it was over and i couldn't move or feel my leg when i woke up because of it. If you feel any pain whe you wake up (like in the front of your knee or your shin) make sure you tell them so you can get some pain meds before it really starts to hurt. Also, with pain meds in general you should make sure that you don't let the pain go past a three or a four and a 1-10 scale because by the time it does start to really hurt, the meds will take too long to kick in. And it'll hurt. Really bad. But a solution for that is just to take them at a certain times in the day regardless of whether it really hurts or not so you don't have to deal with it.
After the surgery i had to sit on the couch with except for going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth and stuff like that for about a week which unfortunately does not involve taking a shower. I also couldn't sleep in my bed for the first few days because there was no way i was about to put myself through all that pain! But for me the times passed relatively quickly because i was on pain meds plus about three other kinds of meds for nasuea, inflamation and something else so i was either sleeping or totally out of it. But that depends on how you react to the meds i guess. Anywho! I was walking, if you can even call it that, after a week. It wasn't so much that it hurt than it was i had absolutely no muscles left in my leg after not using it at all.
In terms of recovery, the single most important thing to do is go to pyshical therapy and do EVERYTHING your physical therapist tells you to do. Since you're pretty active it shouldn't be that much of a problem, but you need to do all your exercises because they can be the determining factor of when your pt lets you start running and actually exercising. At first you'll be working on getting your quad muscle to start working again and your range of motion. After maybe about 3 months (depending on how far along you are) they'll let you jog and you'll start doing more active exercises. A lot of your beginning exercises will depend on which graft you got. After about 4 months i started doing cutting and jumping drills. My pt cleared me to start getting back into sports after about 5 months, but generally for people who weren't too active in the first place will take about 6-8 months.
My friend also tore her acl and it didn't go as smoothly for her. I think part of the problem was that she wasn't going to physical therapy as often and early as she should have been. But anyway, she got her surgery in late july i think and she still struggling with her range of motion, due to a lot of scar build up in her knee. And if your not improving your rom then you'll be stuck because you can't even walk normally without a certain amount of rom, let alone do the kind of stuff they'll have you doing like lunges and jogging and monster walks and star reaches and all kinds of fun stuff. But yeah they've had to put her under and force her knee to bend as well as suck out fluids with a huge ass needle. But hers is a rare case so i doubt you'll have too many problems. ACL reconstruction is a pretty basic and quick surgery so i'm sure you'll do fine. My friend wasn't in the best shape either.
But unless any kind of unexpected problem comes up, it will be something you can overcome with a lot of hard work, just make sure you stay motivated. It can make a big difference in your recovery time.
Also fyi, i tore my right one and my mom and pt wouldn't let me drive for a really long time. I don't know how old you are, but i'm 17 so i had to listen to my mom and do what she said on that. Not fun.
Well i hope i didn't bore you with all this and that i answered all your questions. Good luck!
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