Your knee joint is where three bones meet: your femur or thigh bone, tibia or shin bone, and fibula. These three bones come together and are covered by your kneecap or patella, but they don’t just magically stick together.
Ligaments, tendons, and muscles connect the bones of your knee. One of the most important and frequently injured ligaments is the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.
At all of the Ortho 1 Medical Group locations, our providers treat patients with ACL injuries. The most appropriate treatment for a patient with an ACL tear depends on the severity of the injury, the patient's overall fitness level, and many other variables. Getting advice based on your specific situation is crucial. Here we present five important facts about ACL repair that may help you understand your injury.
As you age, all of your soft tissues become more brittle, including your ACL, and that means they tear more easily. Often, athletes have ACL tears, but if your ligaments are worn, you might get injured stepping off a curb or turning too quickly when someone calls your name.
Age combined with an occasional or sudden increase in activity can also lead to injury. Maybe you’ve decided on a new fitness routine and jumped in too quickly, or maybe you’ve decided to return to a sport you once loved but haven’t played in a long time. Perhaps you’re a weekend warrior who crams all your activity into two days a week.
Your age, activity level, overall fitness, and the severity of your ACL tear significantly affect what treatment your provider recommends. For example, if the tear is minor and you’re not regularly playing sports or other athletic activities, your provider may recommend letting your ligament heal without surgery.
Getting guidance from a highly qualified expert is the most important part of getting better!
Not all ACL repair procedures are the same. Here are the main types of ACL surgeries:
Your surgeon uses a piece of connective tissue from a cadaver to reconstruct your ACL. The procedure is generally safe and may cause less pain than other types.
This repair uses a piece of tissue from your own body. Surgeons often use a piece of your patellar (kneecap) tendon. The patellar tendon heals and regrows the piece that your surgeon uses to repair your ACL.
This type of repair requires a larger incision, and your recovery may be more painful than if you had an allograft reconstruction.
Artificial ligaments have been studied and used, but they have not yielded results comparable to allograft or autograft repairs.
In most cases, ACL reconstruction is performed as an arthroscopic surgery. This means your surgeon makes one or two very small incisions and uses specialized tools and a tiny camera to perform your surgery.
Generally, arthroscopic procedures are less invasive, heal more quickly, and have fewer complications than traditional, open surgeries.
The exact length of your recovery and what’s involved in each phase depend on many of the same factors that determine your course of treatment. Older patients may heal more slowly, and the more severe the tear and the more extensive the repair, the longer the recovery is likely to be.
But if you have ACL repair surgery, you’ll generally have three phases of recovery: the immediate aftermath, where pain management and controlling swelling are the main goals; the phase where you rebuild strength and work to recover your full range of motion; and the last phase, where you return to your regular activities in full.
For most people, the first phase involves using crutches for at least a week, then moving to weight-bearing without crutches over the course of six to eight weeks. The second phase usually includes physical therapy to learn specific exercises, which may take two to four months. The length of the last phase depends largely on your activity level, but usually lasts four to eight months.
The good news is that most people who have ACL reconstruction surgery fully recover. Complications are relatively rare, and less than 5% of people lose range of motion. Following your provider’s instructions and gradually adding activities as you get stronger can help you have a smooth recovery.
If you have a knee injury, schedule an appointment at our San Diego, Carlsbad, or Coronado offices for an expert evaluation. Every injury is unique to the individual, and having advice from a knowledgeable and qualified provider can be the difference between enjoying a full recovery and returning to your favorite activities or living with a limited range of motion.
