ACL hamstring graft in 2 days HELP

[SimonM]

Hi All

I am scheduled to attend hospital on thrusday to undergo ACL repair. I am having the hamstring graft.
I was hoping someone could shed some light on what i can expect after the op.
I am really really scared. Petrified really, i've heard a lot of terrifying stories about the pain i will be in etc, tho reading the posts on this website has given my some reasurance to be honest. Maybe im just a wuss.
I am 27 years old and torn my ACL nearly 7 years ago playing football. After years of going down the 'physio' road and not really having much success i decided to go and ask for a repair job.
I have only recently become a father and the thought of having a kick about with my son when he is older is my main motivation behind having the surgery, otherwise i would have backed out by now.
If anyone has any good experiences of a hamstring graft please please please do tell as i am desperate for some reasurance that everything will be fine.

[MUMofpain]

Sorry I did not see this post until just now, obviously the day of your surgery.  I hope all went smoothly and that you are home safely to start your recovery.

If you have read past posts on here before today, I hope you have someone on hand to give you abit of help in the first few days post op. People have such variable experiences its difficult to say what to expect.

Any concerns, pop another post on and someone will be sure to answer it.  I shall keep a look out and if I can offer any advice I will.

Best of luck.

[Snowy]

Hi Simon,

Best of luck with your surgery - I hope that all is going well.

I'm just over a year out from a hamstring graft ACLr, and for me at least it was an excellent decision. I have no restrictions now; in fact if anything my knee is stronger than it was to begin with after all the rehab. I was able to go back to skiing seven months after surgery, and this summer I've been hiking up mountains and riding in bike marathons. I hope this goes some way to reassure you that there most definitely is life after ACL surgery.

The immediate aftermath of surgery isn't too much fun. The most important things are to stay on track with your painkillers (set an alarm during the night so that you take them at the right intervals), ice lots and lots and lots and keep your leg elevated (with a cushion under the foot, not the knee), and don't try and do too much. Your body has been through a big trauma and needs time to recover. Once you're through the first few days, things should improve a lot. Prepare yourself for a lot of weird sensations, like the nasty blood rushes to the calf that you get after lying down for a long time and all kinds of odd feelings in the shin from the nerve that gets cut during surgery. The hamstring harvest site will be sore, so make sure you move very gently for the first few days.

Make sure you have a really good physiotherapist, and stick to the rehab protocol to the letter. Recovery is quite tedious because it takes so long for the graft to heal and strengthen, but as long as you do your exercises and stick to whatever restrictions you're given for the various stages of rehab things should be fine. Keep focused on that goal of being able to enjoy a kickabout with your little boy - that will do a lot to help you through the down times (and there will be some - it's a long old haul and inevitably frustration gets the better of you every now and again.)

Good luck! Do let us know how you get on, and if you have any questions let us know - there are lots of folk on here who have been through ACL reconstructions, and I know that for me it was hugely reassuring just to find out that what I was experiencing in the aftermath of surgery was completely normal.

[SimonM]

Hi.
Thanks for the replies.
It's now the 2nd day after my ACLr. And so far the pain is a lot less than I was expecting.
I'm currently using only paracetamol which I think is good. The main pain I do get is when I bend my knee to about 50 degrees. There is a strange pain at the bottom of my thy bone, just above the knee. I'm sure this is nothing to worry about.?!?.
I have some very basic excersizes to carry out 4 times each day and I will see the physio next week.
So far I have been really surprised at how much I can move my leg and how little pain there actually is. I was expecting agony to be honest.
Do u no of any tricks of how to keep your leg straight when asleep In bed.? I found this easy at hospital but somewhat difficult now I'm in my own bed.?

[SimonM]

Hi. I was wondering if anyone could help.
I am on day 5 after my op and have developed to the left side of my knee a quite intolerable pain which occurs if I put weight on or even if I'm lay flat and point my toes  towards my head. Even know I can feel something is not right.
After 3/4 days of wondering what all the fuss is about this has hit me hard. I'm worried that I have pulled my graft out of my shin bone. Does this sound possible? Or is it more likely that I have been doing too much and have not been relaxing enough?
I have my first physio appointment on Friday so I'm hoping it is somethin that they can help with.

[Snowy]

Unless you had some kind of accident, it's unlikely that you've pulled the graft out. The location of the pain also sounds like something else. I'd suggest giving your OS a call and getting a quick onceover; it's better not to take chances with a freshly surgeried leg (you want to make sure it's not an infection of some kind that needs treatment) and it sounds like this is more painful than the typical post-surgery discomfort. Definitely better to get it checked out and hopefully put your mind at ease.

[Kaputt_Knee]

Your knee has been cut, pulled about, drilled, stitched and generally traumatically abused in the past week. You will have all sorts of funny pains occurring, some people are more sensitive to these than others. If you have any worries but have done nothing excessive beyond what you have been told to do by the PTs there is little or no chance that your graft has been pulled out.

But as Snowy says, call your surgeon to settle your mind. They are the only person who can tell you what they did in there and settle your mind. The chances are that you will speak with his secretary but she will pass you on to one of the team if it sounds like anything out of the ordinary. Be precise but not dramatic, explain exactly where the pain occurs and exactly when and what type of pain it is.

To me it sounds like the beginning of the "blood rush" pain as you say it is only when you put weight through the joint. but I'm not you, neither ma i there when it happens.

It helps to say which knee has been operated on. You say the pain is on the left side - on your right knee this is the inside (medial) on your left knee this is the outside (lateral). Is the pain more above the knee (i.e. the thigh/femur drilling area) or is it below the knee (i.e. the shin/tibia drilling site). These things help to identify the exact area that the pain is located. A lot of us got blood rush pain when we started moving around more - excruciating for a while, but as you move around more it decreases, but is definitely more painful than when sitting with the leg elevated. This pain does decrease as your leg becomes used to the movement and the vertical position again. I use ankle pumps when I'm sitting with it elevated to help keep the circulation active.

I'm going to copy and paste this in to your other thread as well by the way. It is best to keep to one thread, otherwise you can get confused by all the different answers to the same questions.

Sue