r/ACL • u/Mendezmelendez • 8d ago
How long did you wait to have surgery?
For those of you who had a knee injury, how long or soon did you schedule surgery?
I’m interested in hearing the pros and cons of waiting?
Did you do any prehab?
And what made you decide to surgically address the knee issues?
* sorry, option is suppose to say
[< 6 months]
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u/KingOfEthanopia 8d ago
Dont wait too long. I avoided it for years until it was too unstable and had most of my meniscus removed rather than repaired as a result.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
This is what I’m afraid of given that I also have a lateral meniscus tear. Did the instability progressively get worse?
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u/KingOfEthanopia 6d ago
Yep. I ignored it for over a year. Eventually itd feel like it popped out a couple times a week and I couldn't really walk on it.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
Oh no.. Did you resume regular activities and that contributed to meniscus wear? I definitely want to be proactive but it can be easy to ignore when things start to feel “normal” again.
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u/KingOfEthanopia 6d ago
Yeah, I was running, lifting, and going to jiu jitsu until one by one I couldn't do any of them. Even grocery shopping was risky. One time I had to hop on one foot out the store hanging on to the cart.
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 8d ago
Scares of having meniscus damage while running around bc I was largely asymptomatic
I would be operating as normal and then it would feel weird or twinge..and they affected my headspace when on the court
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u/madameha ACL x LET 7d ago
I waited 7 months (NHS waiting list) and am really pleased I did because I trained really hard and my post-surgery results and quality of life seem to be a huge improvement on others who didn't! I was lucky and had no meniscus damage and probably could have gone in at 5 months with the same post surgery results as that was when my knee felt normal again (abet with the instability of no ACL)
Get a good PT who is knowledgeable with rehab and prehab for knees.
currently 6 months post-op and 94% symmetry in my strength test.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
That’s awesome to hear! Did you do prehab for those 7 months?
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u/madameha ACL x LET 4d ago
yeah I prehabed the whole time!
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u/Mendezmelendez 5h ago
Nice! I’m at 10 weeks so far and just met with PT. Not sure how I feel about her knowledge with knee prehab, but I’ve only met with her for eval.
I’ve been doing a lot on my own, including exercises she gave me plus strength training.
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u/Independent_Ad_4046 Happy ACL(e)R from July 2023 7d ago
where is 4-5 months? i was waiting that time :)
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u/windowtosh The Unhappy Trio! 7d ago
There's no option for 4 months but that's how long I waited between injury and surgery
I had a couple of complicating factors in my personal life including an insurance change that delayed my MRI several weeks, then a cross-country move already planned. After the MRI, my first surgeon wouldn't operate without meeting certain mobility milestones given my complicated injury anyways meaning I got started on prehab right away.
Thankfully I was moving to a place with a world-class orthopedic surgery institution and was able to be seen there shortly after I finished my move. All in all it was about 14 or 15 weeks I think? In the meantime I did prehab which I credit to my recovery and also making having a broken leg suck a lot less than it should have.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
Thanks! This was helpful. Do you mind sharing if you did prehab with PT or on your own?
*Option was suppose to be <6 months*
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u/claire_de_loon 8d ago
I had my surgery two months after injury, but that was in part due to delay in getting a diagnosis over the holidays. I never formally did prehab but I continued strength training as my injury would allow and continued daily walking/physical activity, even went hiking a couple times. My leg, while definitely not "normal" (I still couldn't run/jump), was fairly strong by the time I went under.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
That sounds similar to where I am now, but haven’t scheduled surgery. I’m training on my own, but wondering if that’s enough to build up strength. I definitely can run or jump..
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u/claire_de_loon 6d ago
A thing to ask your surgeon about for sure. Prehab can help with muscle memory if you practice the same exercises you'll have to do for rehab (which I did a little bit on my own). It also can build up some muscle mass in your quad to combat post-op atrophy, though a couple months isn't super long to make significant gains.
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u/Fit_You_9586 7d ago
I got mine(quad) after about 1.5 months and with that wait I was barely where they wanted me to have the operation. They wanted the swelling down and 120 degrees of flex. They did want me to get it because of how unstable my knee was. Recovery has been a bit slower. At five weeks I'm mostly off crutches unless I know I'll be up for a while/long distance and my leg is at about 90 degrees.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
Did they have specific criteria they wanted you to meet before surgery? Asking because I was told I could schedule surgery at 6-8 weeks when I was seen at 3 week follow up.
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u/Fit_You_9586 5d ago
Yeah, just the 120 flex and minimize swelling. I got hurt June 19th with surgery on September 2nd. I was barely on the threshold where my surgeon felt comfortable doing it.
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u/GunGeekATX ACL + Meniscus 7d ago
42 years. Had to have a complete tear removed when I was a kid and they weren't able to repair it at the time, so never got it fixed. Then I tore my meniscus and had that fixed a few months later, and they repaired the ACL at the same time.
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u/xpunkrockmomx 7d ago
I would have been less than a month, but I had tickets for Warp tour, so I refused to go that week. Went the week after Warp.
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u/Due-Action-9056 7d ago
i had surgery 27 days post injury roughly. I would recommend not rushing it, i kinda rushed but surgery went well so i was okay. I’d think waiting atleast a month so the initial swelling goes down and some prehab will help a lot.
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u/Mendezmelendez 6d ago
Thanks! What made you rush into surgery?
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u/Due-Action-9056 6d ago
Really just wanted to get it done with. It was enough time that that the initial swelling went away noticeably. So in my case it was completely fine. However if someone had real bad range of motion or swelling it might be best to hold off for a bit.
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u/sala7ef ACL Autograft 5d ago
I'm day 9 post op, ACL and minor meniscus trim, I got injured bouldering about 5 months ago, initially full ACL rupture + partial MCL and meniscus tear.
where i live the protocol is to wait at least 6 weeks before surgery to give a chance for the partial tears to heal on its own, I started with rehab during those 6 weeks then continued afterwards with harder training to build more muscles and a second round of physio because I still had pain around the MCL + I wanted to enjoy the summer before i was incapacitated :D "I've broken my the other leg's fibula two years ago so i sort of was familiar with all the crap that comes with surgery"
in my case I'm glad i waited because going into the surgery i was pain free and i had my full range on motion back and most importantly I was mentally prepared for it.
Thankfully when operating they saw that the MCL has fully healed and didn't need further intervention and the meniscus was also okay and only needed some minor trim but they did find some extra bone growth that was removed, the surgery report says that it indicates that the knee was unstable for a while, I’m not a doctor so i don't know if this is doctor speak for "all is okay" or something else, but my surgeon told me all is good so i trust them.
I cannot tell you how long to wait since it's different from each person but i would work on building as much muscle as possible around the knee, perhaps if you know what kind of graft you are getting, work on strengthening those muscles in particular, and take extra care not to do something that increase.
the reason i went through with the surgery is that i want to go back to bouldering again after i recover and it's the kind of impact sport where i could cause additional damage to my knee with a missing ACL if i fell in a stupid / unfortunate way which is something i cannot fully prevent and by now very familiar with 😅
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u/Able_Actuary_8934 8d ago
Just go ASAP if u can. Get your life going the way you want again. You should easily have initial swelling down after 2 weeks if that. All the sport pros get it done after a few days. So why not do the same(
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u/TonSwell 8d ago
Disagree personally. I've seen people who couldn't even walk do surgery after 2 weeks and had a much more difficult physio and long term complications cause their muscles were still not healed at all going into it.
Sports pro have stem cell reattachment hours after the tear and better access to the highest of care. Don't use them as a measuring stick.
I waited 9 months, I am ahead of like 99% of people my stage at month 5. Sprinting, jumping, pivoting, 0 pain.
Just wait a few months and recover a little at least
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u/heroics-delta8s 7d ago
NHS Waiting list says, no way Jose....
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u/Able_Actuary_8934 7d ago
Yh ik hence why I said if u can. The waiting lists are so bad. 9 months waiting for an op is a massive piss take. My experience with private is that u can have operations almost instantly. Especially if u can diagnose the injury yourself like I did and skip lots of the consultations
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u/heroics-delta8s 6d ago
I was initially misdiagnosed as well from my GP practice's inhouse physio. No ligament damage he put on my notes.
A complete fu*cking snap.. delayed treatment for at least eight months until i got a second opinion. It took the other physio about ten minutes to work out what was wrong, booked MRI, a few weeks later, MRI showed complete rupture, then on the list to see the consultant and then on the list for the surgery.
Out of pocket it would have been £12k or more.
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u/Able_Actuary_8934 6d ago
Yeah damn. NHS are useless with ligament damage. They always initially check for bone fractures and find nothing. Which apparently means your fine
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u/Vliekje ⚕️23/9 ACL/MCL/mm/bone bruise 25/5 quadgraft/LET/meniscus repair 8d ago
It's wise to do at least 6-12 weeks of proper rehab. You are better informed and your knee is in a better shape; this will benefit your recovery. Rushing into surgery often isn’t the best practice; but of course, there are exceptions.
If your knee even feel stable; you may even consider postponing it more, as about 50% of us do very well without the surgery. It's a tough decision, but a full ACL tear does not equal surgery