Those of you who have had ACL reconstruction...

[burnthiscorpse]

I have finally called my ortho to pull the trigger on getting my ACL fixed and medial meniscus repaired. I tore it 20 years ago. I'm glad I didn't get it repaired at the time with the stone age (compared to today) techniques they had. I never got a MRI to even verify the tear til 2009. I went in for a meniscus tear on the opposite knee and while doing a comparison he said the other knee actually felt worse. So I got a dual MRI and showed the left knee ACL was torn. He said the acl was basically an empty sausage casing at this point with no structural value whatsoever. It had been slowly destroyed over the years. I never actually had many issues because my quads were huge and kept everything quite stable. Before having a few other minor injury issues I was squatting 455 a few months ago which I think is pretty good for a torn/wasted ACL.
Even though I'm old (37) there is a certain competitive athletic field I want to get into. So I might as well just get it done. Its been getting worse and worse over the last two years as far as the joint hurting, aching for longer periods after stress ect.
Now...I am going to demand he use a cadaver. He mentioned a front lower quad tendon graft before. Any graft off my person is out of the question. My tendons are genetically not all that great to begin with so a graft from myself would not be a wise choice.
I also plan on using 8 weeks of Ipam and TB500 immediately post surgery.

So those of you who have gone through this....how long before you were up and walking on your own without pain? How long before its not an ordeal to go up and down stairs? How long before you were back squatting to at least parallel with numbers you had pre injury?

 

[bigbassturd]

I had mine totally obliterated in a college football game and honestly wasn't back to normal until nearly 10 months later. I was back to squatting and running stairs etc after about 7 1/2 months but as far as explosiveness and pure strength on ATG lifts, it's a long road to get that back bro.

Best advice I have is to take baby steps. Getting ahead of yourself is dangerous and can set you way back.

 

[burnthiscorpse]

I had mine totally obliterated in a college football game and honestly wasn't back to normal until nearly 10 months later. I was back to squatting and running stairs etc after about 7 1/2 months but as far as explosiveness and pure strength on ATG lifts, it's a long road to get that back bro.

Best advice I have is to take baby steps. Getting ahead of yourself is dangerous and can set you way back.

Yeah I have no intention of being my own worst enemy here. I'm not so much concerned with BB'ing and squatting. I'm getting the surgery this year instead of next year because I want to get into competing in Highland games. Which will require leg explosiveness of course but I can do ATG jumping and lighter weight speed squats for that.

Im also not going in with a traumatic injury to start with. When you tore yours you wiped it out and it was a traumatic injury. I had the same thing happen with the meniscus in my other knee. I was in pro wrestling training and tore it. Knew what happened cause I had done the other one. It wasn't too bad. Instead of waiting to get it fixed I decided to brace it and continue. Then a week later I tore it way worse and it popped up and lodged in my knee joint. Worst pain ever in my life. This was obviously instant trauma. The brain signaled the lower half of the quad to shut off which happens with traumatic knee injury. Then while I was waiting for surgery my leg shrunk 2.5" !!! If I would have left it alone being non traumatic I imagine recovery would have been way better. I assume the same will be true ACL wise. its elective surgery not emergency from an injury that just happened.
I don't expect this to be anything miraculous and cut recovery in half.....nor am I saying my situation is better than yours was. I'm just saying that trauma and all the things the brain does immediately for protective measures isn't present. So that should only be a plus here.