I didn't want to post this initially but here is my torn ACL experience. Good to see you are doing well.
I tore my ACL during a company flag football game in January 2013. I only know this from a confirmation MRI I had the following Monday, orthopedic surgeon said complete tear and started offering options for surgery. A little kink in the works was a sports hernia that I needed repair on in the mean time. I had to go in for that surgery first then wait 6 weeks to consider anything on the knee due to the projected rehab that was coming and the stress it would put on hernia repair.
I had hernia surgery in early march. All went well and never looked back.
Now the kneeHe gave me 3 options; allograft (cadaver) replacement, patellar graft (think RG3) and a graft from my hamstring. He weighed heavy on the allograft due to the fact that it is less invasive and recovery time was minimal. This is very common with people that are not as active as they once were, think people in their mid 40's. He did mention that the patellar graft is most popular of the three for professional athletes, that in the long run it is the strongest. This does come with the risk of constant pain in your patellar region.
I went with the allograft. I had this surgery in May and was up on my leg the next day, walking gingerly with the aid of crutches. This was outpatient surgery, scope only and took about 3 hours. I felt good about everything but was in pain. Due to my preference, my PT worked me hard. At about a week out, swelling was still there and was in tremendous pain. My PT was a go getter and gave me a hard time for being a wimp. 10 days out I couldn't take it and visited my Ortho. He saw the swelling and wanted to drain it in his office. I sat there watching him put that needle in my knee in three different places, he couldn't get much. He wanted me in the sugery center that evening to drain through scope, put me under again. After that fun little procedure he didn't let me leave. My knee had developed an infection, this was a Monday.
Wednesday they had to go in and clean things out, which included taking out the zombie ACL graft. They kept me a few more days and had one more procedure that Friday to clean one more time and released me that evening. During that stay I had a PIC line installed for my six weeks of IV antibiotics. It turns out, after all the cultures came back, I had a staph infection. Very heavy doses of antibiotics followed. Then I became an infectious disease patient, not a knee injury, that became secondary. I was damn lucky to keep my leg and a doctor friend told me that could have gone bad quickly if they would not have been so aggressive.
Two weeks later I started running a fever, off to the ER and another 5 day hospital stay. They could not find out the cause but they plucked that PIC line out to rule out infection on that. In that stay I had another PIC line put in the other arm. I was released only after my fever subsided, never really found out what caused it. They think it was a reaction to the antibiotics, they switched it. I felt much better from that point on. Infection was cleared and PIC line was removed six weeks after zombie day happened.
I had to wait 4-6 months to get another knee surgery to let the bones heal up for the graft to take. This time I chose the patellar graft. I had that surgery in October 2013. I was amazed how much my right leg had atrophied. This one took and I hit PT like a madman. In that whole mess I lost 20+ lbs and looked like a..wait for it..infectious disease patient. I am back to the weight pre flag football game. I trained for a triathlon the following summer that really made me hit the bike which helped a lot.
In summary, not sure what caused the infection.the cadaver ACL, the hospital, the recover or just dumb ass luck. Personally I just could not go back to the allograft. He did say that the infection rate for that surgery is twice that of the others but it was like instead of 0.5% it was 1%, not sure of the exact numbers. I guess I was that one in a hundred.
and like ursus said, the CPM became my sleep aid for a while.
over 3 years out, i feel pretty much normal.
