Brace after ACL reconstruction and meniscus repair

[feggie]

My OS says I should wear my fixed brace to sleep and  my adjustable brace during the day, all the time unless I am in the CPM machine.I am 12 days post op. 
I have never had to use crutches..the doc said as long as I "peg leg", it's okay.
I find it hard to sleep with the brace on, but don't want to endanger the graft. What have you all been told by your docs about this?
Any advice?
Thanks, Feggie

[ACLGirl]

Hi Feggie,

I am 13 days post op also.  I was told the same thing. But I was also told that wk 3 I will be getting a new brace and will no longer have to sleep in my current brace.

How is your PT going?

Yolanda

[sparkle999]

hi..
was told to sleep in the brace only if i needed to for comfort but that it was better for me to get independent asap. Was told to ditch the brace altogether sometime between 5 and 10 days post-op.

Mine was only ACLR with no meniscus repair so it's different...but that's tha advice i was given. I've a post-op diary in the rehab section if you want more details...i'm a week ahead of you time-wise since the op!
xx

[Ferris]

I was told that i didn't have to sleep in mine so I didn't and I feel that I slept well as a result.  I did find that my knee was stiff in the mornings depending on the position that the leg ended up in and I had to walk it off but it was not painful.  I also made sure that I was sleeping on the side of the bed where my bad leg was next to the edge and not in the middle of the bed - that reduced the chance of it getting accidently knocked by my husband in his sleep!

Rachel

[med1]

I had an ACL cadavers graft about almost 2 years ago.  My O.S. made me wear a hinged don joy acl brace for a bout a year while it healed.  Tell ya what, I wore it all the time for about 6 months except when I was in bed or just sitting around.  Not that I felt I needed it but because he told me to and he was right.  I was only bed bound and in a CPM machine for 5 days. I walked with the brace after that and only used crutches for about 3-4 days and one of those days was mostly with a cane.  He never immobilized my leg except during the firs few days of cpm use when i would get up and walk (because the brace wouldn't go on.  I was also driving a 5 speed car at day 6.   He also put a bledsoe brace on me for a few weeks when i was having a hard time with the regular brace..  My stitches (all 9 of them) came out at day 10 and at day 11 I went to work as a paramedic (hope he doesn't read this cause he'ld kill me).  I was doing post op exercises at day one and therapy at day 8.  Glad I did because it felt good to do them then, and the leg is a good as new now.  The trick is to have an excellent Doc and to know your own body and what it can do.  Be careful and NEVER lie tothe Doc about what you do, I still feel really bad that I did because he is really good to me with a lot of other injuries I seemed to have aquired.  Good luck and just talk to him and see what he says.