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So, I'm just shy of 20 weeks since surgery. I'm amazed at how quickly things sort of healed up and how much progress I made during PT. Every appointment I had with either the surgeon or PT I was told I was doing great, 99th percentile, the whole thing. Just worked real hard and am thankful everything has worked well.But there's good news/bad news. About a month ago I had a follow up with the surgeon and he just gushed at how well I was doing and said he wasn't going to re-write prescription for physical therapy. He said "you don't need it, just keep doing what you're doing." So I have. But now I feel like I've come to a complete halt. I don't think I've progressed a bit since I left his office.I can walk great. I ride exercise bike almost every day and started doing elliptical machine. All good. But I don't think I'm anywhere close to being able to run. My knee still buckles all the time while I'm walking and I just have horrible quad strength. I do leg extensions and can add in a fair bit of weight, but again, I don't feel any progress.I guess I'm just venting/ranting. Anybody have any thoughts on what I can be doing to continue to improve? I'd really like to get back to at least jogging, jumping rope, that kind of thing. Maybe even a box jump one day.One other thing, my knee is still pretty swollen. Everyone says that's normal, but really? No pain at all - in fact my "good" knee hurts much worse, all the time - but knee is quite swollen and warm. 20 weeks.Thanks and good luck to everyone.
Quote from: timfear on October 23, 2017, 05:30:41 PMSo, I'm just shy of 20 weeks since surgery. I'm amazed at how quickly things sort of healed up and how much progress I made during PT. Every appointment I had with either the surgeon or PT I was told I was doing great, 99th percentile, the whole thing. Just worked real hard and am thankful everything has worked well.But there's good news/bad news. About a month ago I had a follow up with the surgeon and he just gushed at how well I was doing and said he wasn't going to re-write prescription for physical therapy. He said "you don't need it, just keep doing what you're doing." So I have. But now I feel like I've come to a complete halt. I don't think I've progressed a bit since I left his office.I can walk great. I ride exercise bike almost every day and started doing elliptical machine. All good. But I don't think I'm anywhere close to being able to run. My knee still buckles all the time while I'm walking and I just have horrible quad strength. I do leg extensions and can add in a fair bit of weight, but again, I don't feel any progress.I guess I'm just venting/ranting. Anybody have any thoughts on what I can be doing to continue to improve? I'd really like to get back to at least jogging, jumping rope, that kind of thing. Maybe even a box jump one day.One other thing, my knee is still pretty swollen. Everyone says that's normal, but really? No pain at all - in fact my "good" knee hurts much worse, all the time - but knee is quite swollen and warm. 20 weeks.Thanks and good luck to everyone.Start taking creatine and cissus and you need to be doing VMO specific exercises at this point. It will be at least another 6 months before you can squat to parallel and the leg extension is a "open chain" lift -- not good for your recovery.At this point I'd recommend you do as much hiking on uneven terrain as possible (safely works ROM and helps you regain gait) and doing weighted step ups and VMO specific training. Just google "VMO exercises" you'll find quite a few. One I do that I still do is squeeze a medicine ball between my knees while doing a wall squat. Another one involves flexing the knee while tied to a anchor with a bungee cord around the back of the knee.Do unweighted squats as far down as you can. You should still be doing the "knee cap dance" and you should be doing patella manipulation (break up scar tissue) as well. I've said it before but months 4-18 progress is not linear. Months 3-10 especially are tough as you are making progress with ROM but have tremendous muscle atrophy. That's why your knee is buckling, that's why can't jump or cut or stop yourself. I'm at almost 35 months now and I was doing 36" box jumps last night no problem. I can now squat 225 10 times again (I'd have laughed at that prior to the dual ruptures but now I'm happy) and in general I'm as athletic (moreso in some cases, I could not have banged out a 7 minute mile on the treadmill when I was fatter pre injury and in bad cardio shape, but I did one last night for my warmup).As John says, it's a long ass recovery. Just keep patient, do some of the things I just listed, and keep working. Work works.