Risk of re-injury to repaired, fully ruptured patellar tendon?

[yardwork0]

13 weeks ago I had a complete rupture of my left patellar tendon, from the patella, which was repaired at a level 1 truama center.

I have no metal in my knee as they did the standard procedure (4 sections of tendon tunnelled through the patella, then sewn together at the top and bottom of the patella).

I have since progressed in my rehab to the point where I doing strength training for my quadracep and the muscles surrounding the knee and performing agility and balance training (think football style footwork drills for agility).

In 2 days I begin light running on the treadmill and I'm on track for a return to full duty (city police officer in patrol) in about 5 more weeks.

My recovery has gone well, slightly ahead of my therapist's anticipated timeline, but right in line with my personal goals.

I have general muscle fatigue in the muscle group(s) that I'm rehabbing the day after a therapy session, but no real pain (the occasional discomfort).

Does anyone on the board know what the "failure" rates for this type of injury?  Have you been able to return to playing basketball?  Soccer?  Jogging? 

I am preparing for my return to work by minimizing the risk of having the same circumstances occur.  My injury happened during a foot pursuit after my "portable" (read 2.5 lb) radio became dislodged from my gun belt.  The radio was being dragged along the sidewalk while still attached to my shoulder by the microphone clip.

The radio became wrapped around my left ankle and eventually cinched my left leg behind my body (think of a calf being tied up at the rodeo).  I fell fwd with my knee projecting out and struck my knee on the sidewalk where the patellar tendon attached to the lower portion of the patella.

I am having small pockets sewn into the inside of my uniform pants which will hold removeable, thin but sturdy, knee pads.  The knee pads are made by 5.11 equipment makers and are about 1/4 inch thick.

I believe that this will keep me from reinjuring my knee from simple tasks such as dropping to my knees to handcuff or scuffle with someone on pavement.

Anybody else go through this injury and have any information that you think would be useful to me, going forward, with my rehab?

[nbamforth]

Hi everyone on knee geeks this is one hell of a great site.
i am a 36year old male who on 14th september 2007 ruptured my left patellar tendon in the mid section.The story as it goes was like this.at about 15.00hrs on that day i was on uniformed patrol with three of my colleagues in the area of  west yorkshire.We came across a male who was dealing drugs in my area.we stopped the vehicle and spoke with him.after a short time we searched the boot area and found a large amount of cannabis.The male grabbed the drugs and ran off down the road with them.instinctively i gave chase and stopped him in his tracks and arrested him for drug dealing.a violent struggle started and a number of my colleagues joined in and everyone ended up on my left knee.at this stage i estimated that there was about 80 stone on my poor knee which quite rightly gave way we ended up on the floor and strangely apart from feeling like someone had given me a dead leg i felt no pain.i was unable to lift my leg of the floor and the knee swelled up to a fair old size.That was it from that moment on my life was changed.before this happened i was very active with a wife and two young children.i also had a plastering business which was non stop and supported my family as my wife didnt work.
everything was going singingly and financial stuff was on target although i must say that i didnt really see alot of my family but that is the spin off to working all the time.what do you do have a poor standard of living or work hard for the nice things in life where you know that your family is very well catered for.
anyway i was taken to calderdale royal and the doctor didnt have a clue what i had done.her words were "well i have never seen anything like this before officer i need to get a second apinion.so off she ran and came back with a more senior doctor who gave me the low down and the severity of the injury.i was taken to huddersfield royal infirmary where the following day i was operated on and spent three days in hospital with a back slab on full length pot.
basically what i have experienced whilst in hospital was total respect for the nhs nursing staff.i can only speak from personal experience but they were brilliant and they did there best to help me.i have read recently in the us where people have had to wait 5 weeks to be operated on and only due to them having health insurance.we the british dont know we are born and i am very proud and grateful to be british at a time like this.
i came out of hospital with asparin and wonderful drug called tramadol which makes you feel on top of the world and at the same time quite high.my wife has recently told me that i spoke a load of mumbow jumbow after coming home and to be fair i struggled to remeber alot of my visitors in the early days of the injury.
i came out of hospital with a full length pot on and it was extremely difficult to get around.the plaster pot is just so heavy and makes showering and toileting very difficult indeed.i bought myself a leg shower bag which was a total god send and enabled me to keep clean.
you need to take great care getting in and out of the shower as accidents are very easy to occur.i spent five weeks sat on the sofa watching tv and reading fhm and being really bored.my colleagues have been great and it is true when they say that the police service is like one big family.they really cared for me and did everything in the early weeks to help me.you need to stay in touch with your family and friends as they are the ones who keep you sane and in touch with the outside world.
having children is very frustrating as they struggle to understand why daddy isnt able to grab them and play with them.what i can say is that although this injury is absolutely terrible it has brought me closer to my wife and children.the key is to get your head around what you are now capable of doing realistically and understand that life for the time being is a different set of circumstances.take each day as it comes and dont be too hard on yourself.as the weeks go by you will improve although it is very slow and at times you hit rock bottom and i personally have been very depressed.to have been so active to now been stopped dead in my tracks is alot to take on board.the six weeks whilst i had my pot on were the hardest just because of the mobility or should i say the lack of it.sleeping is hard because you need to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night and that can be quite a risky business.you need to get your a plastic bed bottle where you can wee into it when required.what is strange is when you wake up and forget that you have the injury and then reality hits home again.
since my pot has been off i have been using the RICE(rest,ice compression,elevation technique) i have also used a hot water bottle on my knee.the physio says that this increases the blood flow into the knee joint.have this on four a max ofr 15-20 mins.
i have good range of movement up to 130 degrees.however the tendon itself really hurts most days and i am still taking 400mg of ibruprofen to target the pain,twice a day.
it is now about 90 days since my accident and i still walk with two crutches and unaided i have quite a significant limp.i am unable at this stage to ride a stationary bike on the lowest level,infact this was one of the reasons why i have lost a week in recuperation.it is so easy to just do too much and you definately pay for that the day after.i feel that there is play dow in my tendon area and imy knee is really unstable.is this normal for me at this stage in the healing process.
my exercise programme so far is this three times a ady.
start with 15 reps of leg slides
15 reps of straight leg raises.
l15 reps of side leg raises.
standing on the injuried leg for twenty seconds for 3 sets.
2xsets of 15 reps of squats with own body weight.
2xsets of 15 calf raises stood up .
calf stretches 10 reps.
unweighted leg extensions sat on the edge of the table for 15 reps.
well that is me so far at three months recovery i try to have a positive mental attitude and look forward to getting back to the way it was.i will keep you all posted.this site has really helped me get all my experiences so far on the scene and hope that what i have written has bored people too much but on the other hand hope it has helped people aswel who are in the early stages of the injury.

thought i would reply to you as we both have the same occupation and i am now twelves after my injury.
the knee is doing well and i am back to work light duties my consultant is sending my employer a report as to when i should be fit to get back out there.to tell you the truth i cant wait mate.
my rehab is improving everyday and now can jog for thirty minutes and sprint for one minute.i still dont have alot of confidence in my knee when it comes down to a disorder type incident but i will see how it goes.it is for me to risk assess things now.

i wish you well with your recovery and stay positive.it this reply seems abit disjointed it is because i have copied and pasted it from my original submission after three months of hell.
kind regards
nick
west yorkshires finest.

[clarethomas]

I'm 14 weeks out from a complete rupture of the L patellar tendon from playing volleyball at a work picnic.  2 days ago I slipped on the wet tiles at the pool changing room (swimming for rehab of the quadricep muscle) and reruptured the tendon.  I'm having surgery again in 5 days.  This time it will be much more extensive and I'll be in a full leg cast for at least 6 wks.  You have to be really carefull for the first year of rehad or this could happen to you.  Best of luck.