I used my hamstring to replace my completely torn ACL on July 1, 2009. I am not sure exactly what Dr Robert Jackson did differently but he told me that it was a new technique that I was going to love. This was my experience: Surgery on Wednesday July 1st. On Friday July 3rd, I went to rehab. I took my first and last pain pill before I showed up because I heard it could get pretty crazy in there.
I told the Rehab guy that was my first pain pill and he told me that I would really regret it if I didn't stay on top of the pills. I usually listen to people but I didn't have any pain so I decided that I would wait until the pain kicked in before I took the next pill. I never experienced any pain so I never took any more pills. My knee throbbed when I was on it too long but I wouldn't consider that very painful. I took ibuprofen, iced and elevated my knee VERY often to keep the swelling down.
The first visit to rehab on that Friday the 3rd I had around a 95 degree bend. On the 13th I had a 140 degree bend and then on the 20th I reached my goal of 150 degrees which is exactly the same as my good knee. The rehab team was very impressed with how fast I had come around. They actually went and talked to Dr Robert Jackson to see what it was that they did differently in my ACL surgery because the results were so awesome.
Dr Robert Jackson said that he used my hamstring and did some sort of bundle which is very common now. The main difference in my surgery had something to do with the angle in which he fastened the new ACL graft.
Anyway, I took pictures almost every other day from my surgery until I was released from rehab 3 weeks later. I also kept a little bit of a journal on what went on each of those first days:
No comments:
Post a Comment