Of course my cast is orange

[altagirl]

Knees are ok, some creaking in one (hard to squat or kneel and stand up again) and the right one is achey ... but all of that is from being such a slug for the last month. I haven't done ANYTHING and there's no real excuse since my legs aren't broken, I should be at the gym. Trouble is I hate the gym and don't have the attention span to slog away on treadmill or bike for hours at a time like i really need to. So how did the allograft surgery go? If this happens to me again, I'm definitely going that route ... I was riding at 4 months after both my surgeries, though slowly (makes an excellent excuse to be a wuss) and not exactly with the doc's blessing. I think it was about 8 months before I could really say I was back to normal. Everything I've heard about the allograft makes it sound as if it heals much more quickly and cleanly--I mean, the bulk of the pain and recovery came from the graft site, since the ACL is really only a waiting game.

I think the allograft recovery was easier, but part of it is probably just the learning curve from going through it a second time. You do still have to be careful and let the graft heal though. I had a hamstring graft the first time - worked fine, but it swelled more, was a lot more painful, more atrophy, etc. But I was a rehab maniac this time around - for a while I was at the gym 3x/day. (That got old pretty quick, but I think it helped.) So anyway, I'm happy with it. Now that both of my knees have had ACL's done - I doubt I'll be doing much really deep squatting anymore (there'd be some serious crunchy noises if I did), but kneeling feels okay.

I know my biggest thing when I'm not actively rehabbing is that I get lazy about doing any sort of balance work. Which would probably help...

 

[firecracker22]

Actually my patellar graft went WAY better than my hamstring graft did. The only drawback was it was harder to regain mobility--but my strength came back so fast that by the end of 3 months of PT, my bad leg was stronger than my other one. And there was only a fraction of the pain and swelling that there was with the hamstring. However, that is why i can't kneel--it feels funny, not really painful, but very strange and annoying when I kneel down.

Oh well. Let's hope neither of us has to do it again!

 

[dirty~d~]

Damn Sharla. Sorry to read about the arm, but I'm glad you're healing faster than they expected... why am I not surprised? :) This new job gives me three day weekends and I'll be in SERIOUS need of stress therapy this summer. Once you're ready to get back in the saddle let me know. I have the tank almost ready for riding.