I’m currently a week on from an ACL repair and miniscus trimming in my left knee. Read on and I’ll fill you in on the details of it at this early stage of recovery.
The knee has four major ligaments – remember that a ligament is the tissue that connects bone to bone. One injury you hear far too often in combat sport is ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) tearing. Typically it’s when either an unexpected rotation force or a push of the knee from the outside of the knee inwards (towards the other knee) causes the middle ligament (the ACL) to tear. The tell-tale sign is a popping sound. The pain then settles and all is well again (your leg functions normally after one or two weeks).
Oh! So I can just soldier-on through the pain right?
Despite what you might think, you can function just fine with a damaged ACL. If your injury is like mine, the damage will have been as a separation of the ligament at the bone in which case there will be some fibers still intact.
Case in point: I likely had a damaged ACL for well over a year, even went through my black belt grading with it!! BUT the knee is highly sensitive and any movement that aggravates it enough and the body will retaliate over auto-pilot. This will manifest itself as an effusion on the knee and your knee movement will get restricted almost instantly – the body’s way of self-preservation. This culprit movement might be as subtle as a quick pivot that your knee didn’t like or someone elbowing your knee accidentally.
The game is up..
I knew I couldn’t ignore it any longer when I took a restful break from Judo and my knee just felt off. It’s hard to explain – my gait was fine, I could lift at the gym, could even go to light training sessions, but there was something odd about it.
And then going back to Judo after being well-rested a heavy randori would then just cause the knee to inflame itself on a regular basis. I had an MRI scan and it was confirmed the ACL was ruptured. Additionally there were issues with the miniscus itself – this typically happens when you don’t have a working ACL so the movements within the knee would then rub on the knee cartilage (miniscus).
How it is now
I’m currently unable to walk without crutches, I’m also finding the knee will often just bloat up if I’m standing up for too long.
Given I’m squeamish about medical procedures generally I’m refraining from doing anything too ambitious. I’ve not hit the gym but I’ve done pushups and pullups at home on the odd occasion.
I was far more physically active after my distal bicep tendon operation (I hit the gym and had a leg day pretty the very next day). General lack of mobility is a downer both in terms of physical motivation but also to my general emotional disposition. I’m having to remind myself regularly that “This too shall pass”.
If you’re going through a similar travail, I found this video incredibly useful: https://www.ypo.education/orthopaedics/knee/primary-acl-repair-t622/video
Best of luck! I hope this write-up is useful to you!