Cruciate ligaments :

ACL/MCL and braces - - Posted by nick157 (nick157), 20 January 2005

I've posted this in the collatoral ligaments section as well.

I tore both to grade 3 last summer (actually partial 50% ACL tear). ACL is getting reconstructed tomorrow, but I keep reading situations where people (on this board and professional footballers) are tearing their MCL and immediately getting put in to a knee brace.

I was never given this option and I can't help but think it's had a bad affect on my MCL. Although my OS told me some months ago it had fully healed, I keep "tweaking" it and it still doesn't feel "right" (it's now been 7 months to the day since the injury). In fact only today while I was doing my quad exercises preparing for ACL surgery I kept getting shooting pains down the inner knee.

Will it heal more effectively once the ACL has been fixed and hence the laxity in my leg has gone? My OS contradicted himself by saying (a) the MCL had completely healed but the ACL needed repairing and (b) earlier saying the MCL would never heal properly if there is an ACL deficiency.

Confused  

Any comments much appreciated.
Posted by Beauzer (Beauzer), 20 January 2005

Hi Nick,

A lot of times, the MCL won't heal if there's some instability from the ACL not working.  Typically the MCL will heal once the ACL is fixed.  That being said, rarely, it doesn't heal (the MCL, that is).  I tore my MCL after my ACL reconstruction and it didn't heal.  After a year of rehab, they had to reconstruct it.  It worked well for about 4 years.  Gotta have it re-reconstructed now, but that's a different story...

Hope that helped,
Danielle

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