ACL tears

[kuba]

I started playing soccer this season. During this Sunday's game I twisted my right knee. Basically I went to turn on my right leg and my thighbone twisted 90 deg in relation to my shinbone.
As you can imagine I dropped to the ground and layed there in agonizing pain.
I was carried of the field, elevated and iced the knee.
On Monday, the pin got so bad that I've decided to go to emergency. They took x-rays, but could not diagnose the problem until I saw an orthopidic surgeon on Wednesday.
He moved my leg a few times, acked my questions about my actividy level and gave me the sad truth, ACL cut/tear.
If I wanna play any sports again, I need reconstrucive surgery after which 12 months of intensive physio and things are expected to get back to %90 normal.
Has anyone experienced an ACL tear and not goe through the surgery?
Right now I can limp around and I have a restricted range of motion. I started physio already, and wanna go back to the gym. I know I can do upper body, but what about lower?
Should I even try doing my legs?
Anyways, I am very unhappy right now cause I love soccer and this kinda screwed my plans for a year. Now I will have a decent upper body with little legs, unless I just work out my left one and have on little leg.

[ectx]

I have an MCL tear. It wis misdiagnosed so no surgery. I'm fine now...took me over a year to walk without a limp, and another 3 or so months to be able to run. A friend of mine tore both MCL and ACL. She opted for surgery. It took her a year to recover and she's up to 98%, however she can only run for 1 more year...doc wants her to stick to cycling and swimming after that.

[kuba]

How did you tear your MCL?
I heard that ACL tears are most common and PCL is very hard to injure. Usually, if you tear your PCL you've also torn your ACL...
I am no expert in this area, I've just read a bit of info on this since it seems like I've done this to myself.

[ectx]

I tore the MCL running. I have an extreme pronation problem that puts a lot of strain on my MCL among other things when I run. I was overtraining...and had worn down my shoes so that I had no pronation control. Friend who tore hers did a combination tear...although I don't think it was PCL...just MCL and ACL. she fell off her road bikeand twisted her knee into an awkward position. This was the second time she did this. Ther first time she tore it, it ended her college track career. She was eventually able to return to running and was doing great...alas, the second injury kind of screwed things up.

[IceRgrrl]

Did you tear the ACL completely, or is it a partial tear? If you tore it completely, you most probably need the surgery to really fix your knee and get back to sports and lifting seriously. Go to a sports doc who is used to working with athletes and who operates on athletes. After the surgery, find a sports oriented physical therapist and do your rehab religiously! ACL tears are not the big deal that they were in the past with modern surgical techniques and rehab. If they can get NFL running backs back into the game, you can get back to your activities.

I had a partial ACL tear several years ago and did not have surgery, but I had a great PT and I worked my a$$ off in rehab and afterwards to get back to hockey and lifting. I have had no trouble since...

Best of luck! I know how you feel right now and it sucks...but there IS a happy ending...

[kuba]

Well,
I have an appointment to see Toronto Maple Leafs doc on Tuesday for a second opinion. He is not so busy during the off season so I guess I got lucky. The first orthopedic surgeon I saw also works at the same sportc injury clinic so I don't expect anything to change.
I the referral card to the pt it says cut ACL, so I think it's gone.

It's weird cause my leg feels funny, it's not so much painfull to walk, but it feels akward. I kinda loose control over it when I straighten it out.
And my physio sucks. I don't think they know what to do. So far I've had 2 sessions which consisted of a few minutes of ultrasound and contracting/stretching my quad and lifting my whole leg. I though they were supposed to be agressive.
Anyways, I'll see what the second doc says and mabe he can reffer me a better physio place.

[IceRgrrl]

SOunds like you have a good sports doc, that's 90% of it.

As for your physio, there really isn't anything agressive that they can do until after the surgery. The ultrasound is probably to help heal the traumatized tissue and surrounding structure, and the stretching is for keeping your range of motion while you're sort of laid up and probably not using that leg/knee as much as usual. Keeping as flexible as possible will help you rehab faster after the srugery. Also, the stretching will help avoid formation of scar tissue in the injured area, which would then impede the surgery and your recovery. It's a long road ahead of you, but just take it one phase at a time.

When is your surgery scheduled for?

[Danzig]

I have the same surgery coming up in about a month.
I think you should definitely get it to.
I've lived with my injury for about a year now, I got it from a motocross accident.
First i had to drain some blood out of my knee to be able to move my leg normally.
It took about 4-5 months before I could start lifting with my legs again ( and then it was really light weights).
Anyway forget all the sh*t about training up your muscles in your leg to get it stabilized again. If you want to live an active life you must do the surgery.
My leg has really been f*cked up ever since the accident, so I recomend you to do it.
Good luck!

[Behemoth]

I used to skateboard. And a year and a half ago I fell and tore mine. It wasn't diagnosed, but I limped for 3 months until I started extreamly light squats. Practically immediately it was feeling better week to week. Within two months all pain was gone and all flexibility was back. About a month later I was able to squat heavy. It's been about a year now and I have never felt a thing since, only thing that concerns me is something in my knee does a slight little pop out when I twerk it the wrong way back.
I definetly don't reccomend doing what I did though, it was obviously a minor tear and I got lucky, I probably could have ended up hurting myself very badly.

I also have a cousin who tore his skateboarding. His WAS diagnosed but doc said he didn't need surgery. Apparently it was really minor because within 2 weeks he was practically back to normal.

[kuba]

My understanding of this injury is that you can get away without the surgery, but...
You might find yourself with other problems down the road.
It is not uncommon for people to develop arthritis within short period of time. Also, because your knee is unstable one day when you are least expected it'll buckle on you and you might sustain further cartilage damage along with tears of other ligaments.
Another downfall is that you subcontinently over compensate your healthy leg to help out the injured one. A lot of people injure the healthy leg after they've had a tear in the opposite one.

I am not trying to scare you as I am sure there are lots of people who suffered this injury are just fine. I at this point can already feel the knee bucking and the shin bone moving around when I take every step. I am not prepared to deal with this for the rest of my life. I want to be able to enjoy sports, especially soccer.
Anyways, I am about to ge see the second OS in about 2 hours. I wander what he will say.

[Relentless]

a friend of mine recently had the same sort of deal; tore his ACL playing soccer...

now, this guy is a former professional football player and excellent athlete and he sought out the same sort of advice, etc.... what it boiled down to was that the surgery was chosen because he plans to remain active in sports for years to come and he wanted to give himself the best chance to recover the most function

[kuba]

It's final, I have torn my ACL. Now I gotta go back in 3 weeks and schedule the reconstruction surgery than. Damn, I can't wait...off from work for 2-3 weeks.
Woohoo!