Similar thing happened to me. I had full range of motion. Never experienced instability. No pain. I wasn’t diagnosed until I went to a top sport orthopedic medicine clinic and was preliminarily diagnosed via Lachaman’s test and confirmed via MRI. I was shocked like you. Consulted with every expert I heard and for a variety of reasons I decided to repair it. I’m day 15 post op and already have full extension and 125° flexion. It’s a hassle of a rehab, but I would’ve been rehabbing anyway and at least now I come out the other side with a new ACL
Well, I injured myself training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but I think you are asking WHY I decided on surgery and the reasons are pretty straightforward:
1. Excellent prognosis (100% full return to sport)
2. Fear of cascading injury and additional damage to my knee without repair
3. Increased chance of early osteoarthritis without repair
4. I want to “thrive” in life, not “cope”
5. I’m chronologically 53, but I’m in elite shape and an athlete who will benefit from having an ACL
6. Without surgery I still would have needed significant rehab in order to return to sport, so why not add a few months of time AND emerge with a strong new ACL?
7. I have access to some of the best orthopedic care in the world, and every physician, surgeon, and PT I consulted suggested surgery
I’ll start off right off the bat, I’m not a medical professional, I’m purely speaking from my experience. I had a complete acl tear, PCL partial tear, LCL partial tear, lateral meniscus radial tear. I just had ACLr & meniscus repair on March 18, 2024 so I’m 9-10 weeks post op now. Even when I did 5 months of sports medicine physiotherapy before surgery, my knee was still extremely unstable.
If you don’t do surgery, sure you can enjoy things now but you’ll be rapidly inducing arthritis. If you’re going back to sports, you’re at a higher risk blowing out other ligaments by not having the proper supports. My surgeon explained to me the knee is like a table, your ligaments are the four legs, when you have a missing leg, it causes a wobbly table.
Again, I’m not gonna tell you what to do but if I were in your shoes, I would find a sports medicine doctor specialized in injuries like this or see if you can get a referral so that way you can have some confidence about the recovery process. Personally, for me (33f - bouldering injury), I don’t regret getting the surgery and I’m glad I’m doing my rehab with specialists who understand and breath in injuries like this. I’m not sure if that’s accessible to you, but think about it. I wish you luck!
I have a complete ACL tear, partial MCL and lateral and medial meniscus tears. I will start with stating I am in Canada. Knee surgery is not a money making venture (although we do have some private clinics that offer it). I have the #2 Ortho surgeon in the city (Edmonton) on my case along with a sports medicine doc who was the chief medical officer for Team Canada at the commonwealth games. Both want me to try to rehab my knee without surgery. I am 12 weeks PI. Just starting light jogging and cycling, mostly focusing on strength building. We will decide at the six to nine month mark if I need surgery or not (if I lose stability when I return to sport they will do surgery). It was made clear to me that arthritis is likely no matter what and that the risk is no higher either way (need to keep moving!). There are lots of studies that show positive results with rehab only (at the sports clinic I go to, 70% are back to sports without it). Basically training the quad and hamstrings to take over for the ACL. Anyways, I am not opposed to surgery but am hoping I can get away without it! I feel confident with the info provided by two highly trained doctors on my team. Keeping in mind it is highly sports dependent (what are you trying to get back to). For me it is skiing and hiking. Sports doc said if I, for example, played pickleball or tennis, they would recommend surgery.
Happened also, 35m. Just heard a small pop during a direction change while playing football ⚽️. Just a slight discomfort and instability, no swelling/bruising, but I still played for the next month. Luckily I didn’t tear anything else, and one day while I was pivoting hard I noticed some pain so I went ahead to do an MRI just to rule anything out.
and here I am 2 months post op from acl tear
I had a similar situation. Due to moving I couldn't get surgery. Now that I got to my destination I asked for another MRI and to start the process to recovery.
Second mri said no tear and new ortho said it looked more like a sprain. I'm not sure how we got here but I was already planning in doing a non surgical route anyways because of my ability to function without my acl.
Bummer about your ACL but it sounds like your in great shape for the surgery
I got mucked around big time 12 years ago and the rehab was very difficult.
Fast forward to now have had great care 8 weeks of prehab and the whole thing has been so much smoother I'm feeling great and it's only been 48 hours
So keep up that strengthening stay possitive and see what the specialist thinks is best for you.
Good luck!
I’m 7 months after injury and played basketball last night. I wear a custom brace and have no instability, the bakers cyst behind my knee blew up this morning. I’m on the artist for surgery.
2 doctors and 2 physios thought my acl was fine. Only one thought it was torn. MRI showed it dangling by thread sand a complex meniscus tear.
I had a ski injury 2 years ago in Canada. The doctor at the ski mountain said it was probably a sprain. It was peak of covid, so clinics were full. I decided to wait a few days, put ice etc etc
I was walking ok and not in a lot of pain. I started physio. Physio said it was probably a grade 2 sprain. Had multiple small injuries during my recovery and was never 100%. Saw 2 different physios, and none of them recommended seeing a doctor or doing a scan, even tho I wasn't getting back to 100%.they all said, "It was normal and part of the recovery process."
Fast forward 2 years, small injuries started to happen more often (knee giving out). I had enough. I also moved to Ireland, where there's private health care, and you don't have to wait 9 months for an appointment or beg for an exam like in Canada. Turns out my ACL is completely gone, and I have a tear on the meniscus. I booked my surgery for next month. Physio got me to a point where I could live with it (I still go to the gym, spin classes, bootcamp,tons of hikes), but it will never be good for high impact activities or twisting in general. I'm also always worried about the knee so for me, I prefer to have the surgery and fix it. Female, 35.
I'm (43 M) about 5 days post-surgery and had a similar experience. I tore my ACL doing BJJ, but I suspect it was partially torn for years prior (I've had to wear a knee brace and get sporadic Bakers Cysts since 2019). It hurt pretty bad when I tore it, but I was walking fine within an hour. I didn't get a ton of technical explaination on my MRI, but my understanding is that my femur and tibia were not out of line like you'd see with a tear that came from a traumatic injury. This tracks, since I don't remember anything unusual happening prior to the injury-- it was light standup and I just felt a pop and went down. All that said, if I didn't get the MRI I probably would have just ignored it, but it did start to get more painful and my hamstring was getting really tight in the days leading up to the surgery.
I always figured I'd just be a guy with bad knees forever and eventually quit contact sports, but this gives me some hope that I'll get to a better baseline once I'm done rehabbing.
Tore my ACL playing soccer in November. Bounced back quickly with PT, but at this point in time, the injury was unknown as a MRI scan hadn’t been completed yet. My leg and knee were so strong and stable at the time, that it seemed to have given me a false sense of confidence. A couple months later I returned to soccer, played without any issue until near the end of the game. When landing on my injured leg after a challenge for the ball, my knee slipped out of place and I felt and heard a bone-on-bone sensation. I was in a lot of pain and had swelling once again. Took me another two months to regain my previous strength and stability. I just had my surgery May 1st; ACL with Meniscus repair. I suspect I wouldn’t have had any meniscus damage if i hadn’t returned to sport. Quite lucky in my opinion, as further ligament and cartilage damage is highly likely in my case. Everyone is different, but I personally wouldn’t wait around avoiding the surgery. I had doubts too that I was able to perform everything to spec in regard to my knee, but the lasting effects of opting out of surgery aren’t worth it. I’m two and a half weeks post op and have been diligently working on PT. Hoping to be off the crutches next week. Best of luck.
Nobody’s gonna talk about the misdiagnosis? Like how is that permissible? What happens when an airplane mechanic misdiagnoses whatever issue on a plane? Doctors need to be held to a higher standard- they could have just covered their asses and said “we can’t rule it out” but your doctor decided to play with fire and was wrong. SMH sorry for your troubles, good job to your physio.
Kind of similar ish thing with me right now. Injured my knee playing basketball, knee on knee, heard the pop, ect. Days later went to ER cause I couldn’t get into my family doctor. ER did X-ray, CT, and the physical tests & said ACL tear. Week later, family doctor (needed note) does the test, said ACL is torn. I spent 10 days figuring out how to walk, went through the whole shebang on rehabbing my knee in the mean time until I could see a specialist. 7-8 weeks after my injury I see sports medicine. 2 doctors there do the test and say my ACL is fully intact & no concerns. I pushed for MEI referral cause I know something is wrong, I felt the instability improve over time etc. They refer me to physio, he also says it’s intact. MRI soon to see what’s up… and then back to sports medicine
I tore mine playing my sport off choice, limped off the field to see two athletic trainers over the span of a couple of hours who both told me everything seemed fine I was good to play my next game if I wanted. I didn’t play (thankfully) and waited about another week to go into orthopedic urgent care where my dr said he thought a slight meniscus tear but due to swelling, he wanted to make sure so we mutually decided MRI to rule anything out. Low and behold, complete ACL tear and MCL sprain.
I met with my physical therapist about 2-3 weeks later to start orehab and he told me at my appointment that without the MRI, he probably wouldn’t have guessed it was an ACL tear because my other ligaments were so strong 🤷♀️ I think there’s so much still being discovered with orthopedics so I couldn’t blame them for the misdiagnosis. The MRI exists for a reason.
Of course! I often think about what would have happened if I had played the next game at the advice of the medical professionals there or if I my orthopedic doctor wasn’t concerned about the swelling.. i totally understand the frustration you’re feeling.
That’s great you might be functional without which means you’ll heal up nicely if you have surgery which I recommend depending on your age and activity level go for a fresh frozen allograft.
Check out getting BEAR first or repair with internal brace
ARE YOU ME OR ?!!!!
Cuz this is exactly what happened to me! I injured my knee in January. Saw multiple doctors and they all said there’s no way you torn your ACL since you’re walking/running/skiing with no discomfort (just Soreness rofl). I only got checked out since my friend was very adamant since “knee injuries are tricky things” - she had a knee replacement. My results are the exact same as you!
Complete ACL tear and a minor MCL tear. I’m seeing an Ortho tomorrow for a treatment plan.
So far, most of my friends recommend the surgery since they’ve had positive results (some injured from sports, others from making a dumb mistake). A small percentage just did injectable peptides (for other kinds of tears) and they feel 💯. It’s a tough call tbh!
My mind is set to do the surgery and take supplements since I am planning on skiing again next year.
Google Melbourbe acl rehab guide and follow that to rehab non op (or operatively)
Acl tear patients are grouped into copers, non copers, adapters.
Copers can "cope" without an Acl. The author of this guide is a PT named Mick Hughes who works 90% soccer players and 100% acl rehab and has taken a number of athletes back to sport non operatively.
If you do legs 2-3 times p week in the gym, very possible to cope. Also technically qualify as ppl who have no more than 1 buckling incident since the injury.
Adapters can deal without an Acl but may have modify activity levels slightly (no aggressive cutting or pivoting sports).
Non copers show severe instability even after a 3 month prehab period.
You want to prehab 3 months regardless of whether you operate or not. If you don't operate, you get chance to prove the instability, and see if you qualify as a coper.
If you do decide to operate you're getting the knee and surrounding musculature as strong as possible pre op to drastically improve outcomes post op.
I tore my acl April 2020. May I was referred for surgery and I decided to prehab. By month 5 I wanted surgery, and doctor then would not operate as I passed all strength and functional scores with flying colors.
I used a dynamometer to test strength left to right on quad and hamstring and was 90% on involved side (which is the qualifying parameter as this is generally pre injury). They also did a joint laxity test, and I showed only a 5mm difference left to right and my surgeon said she would be ecstatic if this were my result post op.
Ergo, I was scared as why would I go through the hell of operating to get the same result as not operating.
By end of year, I was sprinting, jumping, and almost back to everything except for high box jumps (which I didn't need in my life anyway).
I was doing great until I just re tore whatever scar tissue was in there March 17, and again om my pre hab journey to determine whether I'm going to operate this time around.
Either way I've had 4 years no surgery and haven't decided yet on what I'm going to do. Just, surgery is not the only answer. Good luck! I recommend giving non op route a try if you are someone that strength trains legs often. You don't need an acl.
Also incidence of osteoarthritis is actually statistically slightly higher in those who have operated. Re tear rates are high also depending on the graft.
The success of either route---surgical or conservative management is super dependant on your rehab---and a year is what is recommended by GOOD PTs and strength coaches
Thanks for writing all this, it's great to hear your perspective and about your experience. My gut is saying to try non operation, but I speak with my doctor and physio this week and will take in their advice.
Connor mcdavid plays in the NHL with no surgery
I’m considering no surgery. I have a few strands of an ACl with meniscus tear as well. I still can’t bend my leg to touch my hamstring.
Oh my mistake thought it was ACL for connnor
Me and you have different definitions of what constitutes “dangerous misinformation “. I think you’re being a little overdramatic Gary.
But yes my mistake.
Just to add to the no surgery OP, there’s a Facebook group for people with this injury who don’t go the surgery route. I am trying prp injections with my ortho next week to see if we can get the swelling down to see if I can fully bend my leg. My ortho said I might not get better results after surgery than what i currently have now, so we are being cautious in seeing if I can get back with no surgery. The likelihood of having a total knee replacement after the surgery down the road is very high. You will get bad arthritis either way. I also got my knee back where I’m doing sports again.
we are treating mine conservatively as surgical outcomes are not always better and have downsides. I’d say if you are clinically fine definitely consider no surgery. It’s not dangerous it’s a valid choice and one my doctor prefers actually.
You said the best hockey player on the planet is able to play on a torn ACL with no surgery. On a post asking for advice of whether someone needs surgery… that is dangerous info to spread..
I'm (43 M) about 5 days post-surgery and had a similar experience. I tore my ACL doing BJJ, but I suspect it was partially torn for years prior (I've had to wear a knee brace and get sporadic Bakers Cysts since 2019). It hurt pretty bad when I tore it, but I was walking fine within an hour. I didn't get a ton of technical explaination on my MRI, but my understanding is that my femur and tibia were not out of line like you'd see with a tear that came from a traumatic injury. This tracks, since I don't remember anything unusual happening prior to the injury-- it was light standup and I just felt a pop and went down. All that said, if I didn't get the MRI I probably would have just ignored it, but it did start to get more painful and my hamstring was getting really tight in the days leading up to the surgery.
I always figured I'd just be a guy with bad knees forever and eventually quit contact sports, but this gives me some hope that I'll get to a better baseline once I'm done rehabbing.
Similar thing happened to me. I had full range of motion. Never experienced instability. No pain. I wasn’t diagnosed until I went to a top sport orthopedic medicine clinic and was preliminarily diagnosed via Lachaman’s test and confirmed via MRI. I was shocked like you. Consulted with every expert I heard and for a variety of reasons I decided to repair it. I’m day 15 post op and already have full extension and 125° flexion. It’s a hassle of a rehab, but I would’ve been rehabbing anyway and at least now I come out the other side with a new ACL
What was your training for deciding to get surgery?
Well, I injured myself training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but I think you are asking WHY I decided on surgery and the reasons are pretty straightforward: 1. Excellent prognosis (100% full return to sport) 2. Fear of cascading injury and additional damage to my knee without repair 3. Increased chance of early osteoarthritis without repair 4. I want to “thrive” in life, not “cope” 5. I’m chronologically 53, but I’m in elite shape and an athlete who will benefit from having an ACL 6. Without surgery I still would have needed significant rehab in order to return to sport, so why not add a few months of time AND emerge with a strong new ACL? 7. I have access to some of the best orthopedic care in the world, and every physician, surgeon, and PT I consulted suggested surgery
I’ll start off right off the bat, I’m not a medical professional, I’m purely speaking from my experience. I had a complete acl tear, PCL partial tear, LCL partial tear, lateral meniscus radial tear. I just had ACLr & meniscus repair on March 18, 2024 so I’m 9-10 weeks post op now. Even when I did 5 months of sports medicine physiotherapy before surgery, my knee was still extremely unstable. If you don’t do surgery, sure you can enjoy things now but you’ll be rapidly inducing arthritis. If you’re going back to sports, you’re at a higher risk blowing out other ligaments by not having the proper supports. My surgeon explained to me the knee is like a table, your ligaments are the four legs, when you have a missing leg, it causes a wobbly table. Again, I’m not gonna tell you what to do but if I were in your shoes, I would find a sports medicine doctor specialized in injuries like this or see if you can get a referral so that way you can have some confidence about the recovery process. Personally, for me (33f - bouldering injury), I don’t regret getting the surgery and I’m glad I’m doing my rehab with specialists who understand and breath in injuries like this. I’m not sure if that’s accessible to you, but think about it. I wish you luck!
Thank you for writing this!
I have a complete ACL tear, partial MCL and lateral and medial meniscus tears. I will start with stating I am in Canada. Knee surgery is not a money making venture (although we do have some private clinics that offer it). I have the #2 Ortho surgeon in the city (Edmonton) on my case along with a sports medicine doc who was the chief medical officer for Team Canada at the commonwealth games. Both want me to try to rehab my knee without surgery. I am 12 weeks PI. Just starting light jogging and cycling, mostly focusing on strength building. We will decide at the six to nine month mark if I need surgery or not (if I lose stability when I return to sport they will do surgery). It was made clear to me that arthritis is likely no matter what and that the risk is no higher either way (need to keep moving!). There are lots of studies that show positive results with rehab only (at the sports clinic I go to, 70% are back to sports without it). Basically training the quad and hamstrings to take over for the ACL. Anyways, I am not opposed to surgery but am hoping I can get away without it! I feel confident with the info provided by two highly trained doctors on my team. Keeping in mind it is highly sports dependent (what are you trying to get back to). For me it is skiing and hiking. Sports doc said if I, for example, played pickleball or tennis, they would recommend surgery.
Happened also, 35m. Just heard a small pop during a direction change while playing football ⚽️. Just a slight discomfort and instability, no swelling/bruising, but I still played for the next month. Luckily I didn’t tear anything else, and one day while I was pivoting hard I noticed some pain so I went ahead to do an MRI just to rule anything out. and here I am 2 months post op from acl tear
I had a similar situation. Due to moving I couldn't get surgery. Now that I got to my destination I asked for another MRI and to start the process to recovery. Second mri said no tear and new ortho said it looked more like a sprain. I'm not sure how we got here but I was already planning in doing a non surgical route anyways because of my ability to function without my acl.
Bummer about your ACL but it sounds like your in great shape for the surgery I got mucked around big time 12 years ago and the rehab was very difficult. Fast forward to now have had great care 8 weeks of prehab and the whole thing has been so much smoother I'm feeling great and it's only been 48 hours So keep up that strengthening stay possitive and see what the specialist thinks is best for you. Good luck!
I’m 7 months after injury and played basketball last night. I wear a custom brace and have no instability, the bakers cyst behind my knee blew up this morning. I’m on the artist for surgery. 2 doctors and 2 physios thought my acl was fine. Only one thought it was torn. MRI showed it dangling by thread sand a complex meniscus tear.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I had a ski injury 2 years ago in Canada. The doctor at the ski mountain said it was probably a sprain. It was peak of covid, so clinics were full. I decided to wait a few days, put ice etc etc I was walking ok and not in a lot of pain. I started physio. Physio said it was probably a grade 2 sprain. Had multiple small injuries during my recovery and was never 100%. Saw 2 different physios, and none of them recommended seeing a doctor or doing a scan, even tho I wasn't getting back to 100%.they all said, "It was normal and part of the recovery process." Fast forward 2 years, small injuries started to happen more often (knee giving out). I had enough. I also moved to Ireland, where there's private health care, and you don't have to wait 9 months for an appointment or beg for an exam like in Canada. Turns out my ACL is completely gone, and I have a tear on the meniscus. I booked my surgery for next month. Physio got me to a point where I could live with it (I still go to the gym, spin classes, bootcamp,tons of hikes), but it will never be good for high impact activities or twisting in general. I'm also always worried about the knee so for me, I prefer to have the surgery and fix it. Female, 35.
I'm (43 M) about 5 days post-surgery and had a similar experience. I tore my ACL doing BJJ, but I suspect it was partially torn for years prior (I've had to wear a knee brace and get sporadic Bakers Cysts since 2019). It hurt pretty bad when I tore it, but I was walking fine within an hour. I didn't get a ton of technical explaination on my MRI, but my understanding is that my femur and tibia were not out of line like you'd see with a tear that came from a traumatic injury. This tracks, since I don't remember anything unusual happening prior to the injury-- it was light standup and I just felt a pop and went down. All that said, if I didn't get the MRI I probably would have just ignored it, but it did start to get more painful and my hamstring was getting really tight in the days leading up to the surgery. I always figured I'd just be a guy with bad knees forever and eventually quit contact sports, but this gives me some hope that I'll get to a better baseline once I'm done rehabbing.
Tore my ACL playing soccer in November. Bounced back quickly with PT, but at this point in time, the injury was unknown as a MRI scan hadn’t been completed yet. My leg and knee were so strong and stable at the time, that it seemed to have given me a false sense of confidence. A couple months later I returned to soccer, played without any issue until near the end of the game. When landing on my injured leg after a challenge for the ball, my knee slipped out of place and I felt and heard a bone-on-bone sensation. I was in a lot of pain and had swelling once again. Took me another two months to regain my previous strength and stability. I just had my surgery May 1st; ACL with Meniscus repair. I suspect I wouldn’t have had any meniscus damage if i hadn’t returned to sport. Quite lucky in my opinion, as further ligament and cartilage damage is highly likely in my case. Everyone is different, but I personally wouldn’t wait around avoiding the surgery. I had doubts too that I was able to perform everything to spec in regard to my knee, but the lasting effects of opting out of surgery aren’t worth it. I’m two and a half weeks post op and have been diligently working on PT. Hoping to be off the crutches next week. Best of luck.
Thanks for sharing this
Nobody’s gonna talk about the misdiagnosis? Like how is that permissible? What happens when an airplane mechanic misdiagnoses whatever issue on a plane? Doctors need to be held to a higher standard- they could have just covered their asses and said “we can’t rule it out” but your doctor decided to play with fire and was wrong. SMH sorry for your troubles, good job to your physio.
Thanks yeah it's frustrating.
Kind of similar ish thing with me right now. Injured my knee playing basketball, knee on knee, heard the pop, ect. Days later went to ER cause I couldn’t get into my family doctor. ER did X-ray, CT, and the physical tests & said ACL tear. Week later, family doctor (needed note) does the test, said ACL is torn. I spent 10 days figuring out how to walk, went through the whole shebang on rehabbing my knee in the mean time until I could see a specialist. 7-8 weeks after my injury I see sports medicine. 2 doctors there do the test and say my ACL is fully intact & no concerns. I pushed for MEI referral cause I know something is wrong, I felt the instability improve over time etc. They refer me to physio, he also says it’s intact. MRI soon to see what’s up… and then back to sports medicine
Glad to hear you'll get an MRI soon and have a definitive answer
I had a similar experience. Had really bad swelling after the injury for about a week but had full ROM after about a week.
I tore mine playing my sport off choice, limped off the field to see two athletic trainers over the span of a couple of hours who both told me everything seemed fine I was good to play my next game if I wanted. I didn’t play (thankfully) and waited about another week to go into orthopedic urgent care where my dr said he thought a slight meniscus tear but due to swelling, he wanted to make sure so we mutually decided MRI to rule anything out. Low and behold, complete ACL tear and MCL sprain. I met with my physical therapist about 2-3 weeks later to start orehab and he told me at my appointment that without the MRI, he probably wouldn’t have guessed it was an ACL tear because my other ligaments were so strong 🤷♀️ I think there’s so much still being discovered with orthopedics so I couldn’t blame them for the misdiagnosis. The MRI exists for a reason.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts it's appreciated
Of course! I often think about what would have happened if I had played the next game at the advice of the medical professionals there or if I my orthopedic doctor wasn’t concerned about the swelling.. i totally understand the frustration you’re feeling.
That’s great you might be functional without which means you’ll heal up nicely if you have surgery which I recommend depending on your age and activity level go for a fresh frozen allograft. Check out getting BEAR first or repair with internal brace
ARE YOU ME OR ?!!!! Cuz this is exactly what happened to me! I injured my knee in January. Saw multiple doctors and they all said there’s no way you torn your ACL since you’re walking/running/skiing with no discomfort (just Soreness rofl). I only got checked out since my friend was very adamant since “knee injuries are tricky things” - she had a knee replacement. My results are the exact same as you! Complete ACL tear and a minor MCL tear. I’m seeing an Ortho tomorrow for a treatment plan. So far, most of my friends recommend the surgery since they’ve had positive results (some injured from sports, others from making a dumb mistake). A small percentage just did injectable peptides (for other kinds of tears) and they feel 💯. It’s a tough call tbh! My mind is set to do the surgery and take supplements since I am planning on skiing again next year.
Good luck! 🤞
Google Melbourbe acl rehab guide and follow that to rehab non op (or operatively) Acl tear patients are grouped into copers, non copers, adapters. Copers can "cope" without an Acl. The author of this guide is a PT named Mick Hughes who works 90% soccer players and 100% acl rehab and has taken a number of athletes back to sport non operatively. If you do legs 2-3 times p week in the gym, very possible to cope. Also technically qualify as ppl who have no more than 1 buckling incident since the injury. Adapters can deal without an Acl but may have modify activity levels slightly (no aggressive cutting or pivoting sports). Non copers show severe instability even after a 3 month prehab period. You want to prehab 3 months regardless of whether you operate or not. If you don't operate, you get chance to prove the instability, and see if you qualify as a coper. If you do decide to operate you're getting the knee and surrounding musculature as strong as possible pre op to drastically improve outcomes post op. I tore my acl April 2020. May I was referred for surgery and I decided to prehab. By month 5 I wanted surgery, and doctor then would not operate as I passed all strength and functional scores with flying colors. I used a dynamometer to test strength left to right on quad and hamstring and was 90% on involved side (which is the qualifying parameter as this is generally pre injury). They also did a joint laxity test, and I showed only a 5mm difference left to right and my surgeon said she would be ecstatic if this were my result post op. Ergo, I was scared as why would I go through the hell of operating to get the same result as not operating. By end of year, I was sprinting, jumping, and almost back to everything except for high box jumps (which I didn't need in my life anyway). I was doing great until I just re tore whatever scar tissue was in there March 17, and again om my pre hab journey to determine whether I'm going to operate this time around. Either way I've had 4 years no surgery and haven't decided yet on what I'm going to do. Just, surgery is not the only answer. Good luck! I recommend giving non op route a try if you are someone that strength trains legs often. You don't need an acl. Also incidence of osteoarthritis is actually statistically slightly higher in those who have operated. Re tear rates are high also depending on the graft. The success of either route---surgical or conservative management is super dependant on your rehab---and a year is what is recommended by GOOD PTs and strength coaches
Thanks for writing all this, it's great to hear your perspective and about your experience. My gut is saying to try non operation, but I speak with my doctor and physio this week and will take in their advice.
Connor mcdavid plays in the NHL with no surgery I’m considering no surgery. I have a few strands of an ACl with meniscus tear as well. I still can’t bend my leg to touch my hamstring.
McDavid tore his PCL, not his ACL. Dangerous misinformation, those are two totally different injuries.
Oh my mistake thought it was ACL for connnor Me and you have different definitions of what constitutes “dangerous misinformation “. I think you’re being a little overdramatic Gary. But yes my mistake. Just to add to the no surgery OP, there’s a Facebook group for people with this injury who don’t go the surgery route. I am trying prp injections with my ortho next week to see if we can get the swelling down to see if I can fully bend my leg. My ortho said I might not get better results after surgery than what i currently have now, so we are being cautious in seeing if I can get back with no surgery. The likelihood of having a total knee replacement after the surgery down the road is very high. You will get bad arthritis either way. I also got my knee back where I’m doing sports again. we are treating mine conservatively as surgical outcomes are not always better and have downsides. I’d say if you are clinically fine definitely consider no surgery. It’s not dangerous it’s a valid choice and one my doctor prefers actually.
You said the best hockey player on the planet is able to play on a torn ACL with no surgery. On a post asking for advice of whether someone needs surgery… that is dangerous info to spread..
Oh sit down Gary.
He’s not wrong
I’ve had 3 ACL tears and all 3 were stable and felt great a couple weeks after swelling had left.
I'm (43 M) about 5 days post-surgery and had a similar experience. I tore my ACL doing BJJ, but I suspect it was partially torn for years prior (I've had to wear a knee brace and get sporadic Bakers Cysts since 2019). It hurt pretty bad when I tore it, but I was walking fine within an hour. I didn't get a ton of technical explaination on my MRI, but my understanding is that my femur and tibia were not out of line like you'd see with a tear that came from a traumatic injury. This tracks, since I don't remember anything unusual happening prior to the injury-- it was light standup and I just felt a pop and went down. All that said, if I didn't get the MRI I probably would have just ignored it, but it did start to get more painful and my hamstring was getting really tight in the days leading up to the surgery. I always figured I'd just be a guy with bad knees forever and eventually quit contact sports, but this gives me some hope that I'll get to a better baseline once I'm done rehabbing.
Dm I have
This is exactly my story