Got my new ACL yesterday!

Surgery's done, I'm about 24hrs post-op right now. My femoral block is starting to wear off so I'm loaded up on the codine. I did my first real set of range of motion excersices about an hour ago, and thought my knee was going to explode!

Got the whole next week off work to sit around, watch wake vids, and think about riding again, only 6-8 short months....

Thanks to everyone the past month who posted their ACL stories and gave advice on grafts, rehab, braces, etc.

Good luck man. Took my first "just riding" boat set Wednesday since mine. It'll be here before you know it! Rehab hard!!

Nice. How you getting along w/ your cadaver graft? Does you knee feel as solid as before?

How long ago was you op and how long till they release you? My buddy had an allograft and he said the hardest thing was waiting to go ride 100% while the graft incorporated itself into his body. It is supposed to take a little longer with the allograft, even though your knee will feel 100%.

Take her easy getting back to it, I can tell you I don't wanna go through this again!

Did you get a brace? If so what kind?

I got the CTI Custom Pro Sport... solid as a rock.

I'm 3.5 months out (give or take a week) and to be honest I don't feel 100% at all yet. I still have light pain and stiffness due to over use (therapy and riding). I rode on the baby cable at OWC on Saturday and took my first boat sesh Wed. I felt pretty good on the cable, but terrible behind the boat. I was unsure of myself and felt like 23mph was more like 70! Olie 180s were nerve racking simply because I didn't want to fall. I ride goofy and tore my right knee... I enjoyed riding switch before, but now for some reason switch feels more comfortable than regular. Go figure?

The graft doesn't feel loose at all, on the contrary, I feel pretty tight.

I'm not fully cleared to shred until late October which will be 5.5-6 months post-op.

Glad to hear your all fixed up. Im going in for mine in Early november. Tore my meniscus and ACL in July. Goodluck with the rehab...! Get well soon.

I'm waiting to get a date on ACL reconstruction as well! Glad to hear that codein is helping you. :P I'm going to see my surgeon again next Thursday. Good luck with rehab!

geez... you guys make it sound like THE thing to do, HIP even!! Maybe we should all be so lucky!! haha

J/k.. get better soon you all.

good luck, do the rehab.

Jonny,

Funny you should say that, about a week after I did mine we all went to a Byerly Demo Day here in central Illinios. As we had the usual ACL discussions I felt like one of the boys with Byerly, Matt Malloy, Ross Gardner and the Hyperlite reps that were there. Byerly actually welcomed me to the club... what an honor, I guess....

Yeah your not cool unless you pee your pants, or tear your acl... Byerly welcomed me to the club as well I was still on cruches at the PWT in MN when I did mine. Good luck with rehab I'm a year and a half out of allograph and it seems strong and i'm riding better too!

Luker you're nuts!

I'm not stepping on my board till at least March/April next year....

Course I have a midwest winter of downtime anyways.

Tore mine a week ago tomorrow. Had 60cc of bloody effusion aspirated today. Minimally invasive cadaveric repair scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Just hoping to go w2w again someday...take for granted never having had a "major" riding injury up until now. I'd rather not be a member of this club!

Good luck with the rehab!

Range of motion exercises are f-ing brutal. Extension is no problem, I can straighten all the way out, even wrap a towel around my foot and get a good pull (I can almost touch my toes).

Flexion is a biatch. Anyone else have similar issues. My knee just feels like it's going to explode. I don't know if this is due to them taking the patellar graft or something else.

I'm into day 2 post-op. I undress the wound and shower for the first time since Thursday, my wife is really looking forward to that.

Surgery 02/13/09 - All I can say is keep with it. It gets easier. As for showering, my Doc said to use saran wrap and duct tape, I had my stitches and staples for a week though. Worked pretty good. It may seem like your flexion will never come back, but it will. It took me about three months to get to 95-100%. Some people get it much sooner than that. Every one heals a bit differently. I was fully released at three months. Started riding and playing basketball soon after without a brace. Riding hard at around four months and everything feels great. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You'll reach it before you know it. Just keep stretching and working your knee.

I joined the club this summer as well, I get my new ACL next Friday... I'm having the hamstring replacement done.

MD - which repair did you have done? fully released at 3 months would be awesome! Seems like most people are telling me 5-6 months.

Dustin - you may think I'm nuts... but wait until the fever of not riding sets in... you'll be itching to get back out just like I am/was

yeah you're probably right... like I said though we're coming into the off season here in Illinois anyways. Pretty damn cold here come late October. I won't be near as tempted as you.

luker-- i know what you mean. I haven't had my ACL fixed yet and I've been itching to ride. As a substitute for wakeboarding, I've been wakesurfing.

I had the hamstring graft. I am a flooring guy so the patellar was out for me and I wasn't too sure 'bout using another persons part.

I was lucky, after my injury, I lost interest in ridin'. I even wondered if I'd get the desire back, after a couple of sets and getting over the uncertainty of the new knee, I can't get enough.

Sounds like you're sporting a new semitendonosis!! Congrats!!

i am going to get mine done again soon tore it on a scarecrow 3 months after getting it done i rode this season without it it just sucks being afraid to try different inverts. this time i will take my time rehabing instead of riding

I'm a week out of surgery, and sick of this already. I moved into college Friday and my calves hurt so effing bad from trekking around campus and back and forth to parties. It's not so much the knee that hurts as all the other muscles in my leg. But man, I feel for you with the pain block wearing off. Once mine wore off I've never been in worse pain. Morphine didn't so jack for me that night, and they couldn't give me something stronger without the doc's permission, and they didn't wanna call him. I suffered. The next day they gave me this tordol stuff in my IV I think thats what it was called, and that was great. It's supposed to be like 10 times stronger than morphine tho haha. I feel like i noticed a huge improvement the first few days after surgery and now it's just kinda staying the same. Flexion is a biatch for me too, and I had the hamstring graft so i don't think th graft type matters. I can pretty much straighten too but I can just barelt get close to 90 degrees. On the positive side, i went to the weight room today and could do light weight leg presses and extensions. We'll see how i feel tomorrow from that... I start therapy back up wednesday. Good luck with your rehab everyone! And operations if you haven't had them yet!

Had an interesting conversation with my PT today. We were discussing some moderate pain I have been having in my knee around the bottom of the graft at the screw, and that I was concerned about it considering I was already almost 4 months out. She mentioned that she went to a seminar this weekend and learned the following:

When an allograft is used, your body doesn't truly begin to accept it until later in the recovery process (somewhere between 2-4 months). This means that the graft from the cadaver basically "dies" in side your leg and your body doesn't truly start vascularizing it, building living tissue around it, etc. until around 3 months. The alternative is when you graft your own tendon be it a hammy, patella, etc... your body is already accustomed to circulating blood to it etc... so it takes hold faster (not necessarily better, just faster). This is why it is STRONGLY recommended athletes wait to return to full speed competition as close to the full 6 month layoff period as possible when an allograft is used.

Makes sense and thought it was interesting so I figured I'd share ;) And I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Luker I'd read the same thing, only the number was more like 8-9 months before doctors are usually comfortable releasing patients back to activity after allograft vs. 6 months for autograft. Each doc is different though.

Although in either case they release you back to activity in 6-8 months and your graft is fully functional, it will not fully vascularize and incorporate into your body for quite some time. I read something like 10-12 months for autograft and 15-18 for allograft.

That's one of the warnings about allografts, you'll be tempted to get back to activity at 3-6 months, your leg will feel money cause there was no graft harvest. That's actually when your new ACL is the weakest. That's why I was suprised to hear you were riding so soon. Take her easy and be careful bro...

I can tell you I have way more pain from my patellar tendon harvest site than I do from the bone tunnels or graft insertion.

When I went for my post-op I felt a little better about my graft choice. The doc said he opened my knee up and was delighted to find a big, meaty, healty patellar tendon. Mine was actually about 10-15% wider than the average person, meaning I still have more than plenty left on my knee cap to do the job.

Dustin,

Sent you a PM. Getting my ACL fixed in about 24 hours from now!

Rob, I've never used PM on this site before. How do I check them? Do they forward to another email account?

Man I feel like an idoit...

the personal message should be sent to your email you set up with this website.

My email is robriewoldt@yahoo.com

I haven't seen it come through yet. My email is dyost33@excite.com.

I was spooked on Patella tendons because my buddy did his that way and like his first week back he split his knee cap. I'll keep all my working parts in order and take some off of a dead dude thank you very much ;)

Damn that would suck. I asked about that problem specifically and it's supposed to be very rare. How long after surgery did your buddy break his knee cap?

He waited 6 months to ride... so 6 months and a week. I felt terrible for him.

I had mine done on Aug 26 so I know how yall are feeling. I just got up to 120 degrees on my CPM machine and glad to have that out of the way. I did the autograph with my patella and so far I can't complain. I was skeptical about it at 1st bc my other knee a diff doctor used my hamstring and it worked out with no pain, but I wasn't doing any flexion exercises until I went to rehab and that sucked hardcore. I start PT next week and looks like I'll be going at a good pace for the next 3-4 months, but I'm in no rush since I have until the end of April to even start thinking about riding again.

Just remember like everyone else is saying, take it slow you had a reconstruction surgery, try not to make it a habit of having one by being impatient with recovery time.

I shredded again this morning ;) 7AM butter sesh!!

Dang Luker, you are making a fast comeback, Im impressed! How does it feel after riding? I'm at 7 mos. post-op and I still get pretty sore after riding.

I'm not really pushing anything... no wake to wake stuff or anything just yet.

However, I did hit the picnic table and the flat bar at OWC this past weekend! Sooo much fun, 270 on and some other stuff that I haven't done in a LONG time so it was rad. I have some pics I'll post up later. I rode Sunday and Monday for probably 2 hours both days and I'm a little sore today around the bottom of the graft where the screw is, but no real swelling or significant pain. I've been rehabing ridiculously hard so it looks to be paying off. I was 4 months out officially Friday.

Luker take it easy on that thing!!!

I was the same as you last year. 4-5 months out, rehabing my knee like crazy and rode the snow fairly lightly last winter and felt really good. Then Boom! It tore again. Just like that I was back to square one. It really sucked. Wish I would have been more patient.

Well I'm about 5 hours out of my ACL reconstruction surgery and so far so good. No major pain yet, but I'm sure the pain meds will ware off soon enough. How soon after surgery can you start working on getting your range of motion back? Any suggestions on exercises to do the first few days?

Chad, when I had mine done, and after I had to return the machine-o-pain (range of motion machine, whatever its called), I used an old Schwinn stationary bike to get my range back. Started with the seat all the way up and kept slowly lowering the seat over time. Not sure how many miles I logged on that thing, but I seemed to live in the saddle of that bike until I could get my heal to my butt. Worked great. Good luck.

I love this thread I'm getting mine replaced tomorrow morning.

So far biking is doing wonders for mine. I'm four weeks out and have full extension and can bend past 90. The knee itself feels good for the most part, it's just me being and idiot and pulling my hamstring that hurts. I'm at college so I have a lot of time to work out, so I get on the bike 4+ days a week. My biggest issue is the looseness. It just doesn't feel tight like I think it should. Did anyone else go through this? I'm hoping it's something that comes back with time.

Hope Brad's surgery went well!!! Let us know, Brad.