ACL reconstruction rehab?

I had a quick question for anyone who has gone through this before.
i just had my 6 month checkup with my doctor, i was hoping to go in there and him tell me that i am released and can wakeboard or do whatever..... two weeks prior to this checkup i fished up my PT and my therapist said i was ready to go back to wakeboarding but just take it easy for a while. so i was fairly excited going into the appt, hopeing to hear those words out of his mouth..your released to go back to sports....
Well that was shot down when he told me that he would like to see me wait another 3 months before wakeboarding. Obviously he is crazy conservative but i wasnt sure if many other doctors out there tell there patients to wait 9 months before going back to activity? I had a hamstring graft, which i am not sure if hamstring or cadavar make much difference on recovery time or not, but i was curious as to how many months you waited until getting back on the board?

My Son had his done sept of o5, cadavar and 4mos later was told he could go back p.e. in school. He was jogging on the track and foot slipped out a little and blew his ACL again, so he just started wakeboarding with his knee brace and blew the other knee out. He has not had either fixed yet. but will this fall before he turns 18.Also what is light riding or take it easy?I would wait a month have you doc get you into a cti brace and start. It's better to be safe then sorry.

I had my surgery on August 23rd and I had a cadavar graft. I went riding in the middle of Febraury with a brace on and things felt good. My left leg (torn ACL knee) is still not as strong as my right and I would say that I am 85% there. I continue to work out and lift to get my leg stronger and the hard work is paying off. I went riding this weekend and things felt great. Just make sure that you continue to re-hab outside of PT and work on stretching alot before you ride and every day for that matter. I am no where near where I was before I got injured as far as consistency or air but it is also the start of a new season so things are progressing nicely. I don't know about your situation as well but your doctor is the expert on your knee so you might want to listen to his advice. I just wanted to share my story for you.

I blew my acl and tore the miniscus up pretty good May a couple years ago. I had the patellar graft done. I was back to work as a physical therapist asst. 2 months later and was snowboarding in December. Every Dr. has a different train of thought on recovery times etc. They don't want to see their handy work ripped to shreds! ...6 years later it is strong but, I still feel it.

Had mine december 6, my strength is about 90%, but I haven't been working my good leg hard so it is probably more like 75%. I wouldn't wakeboard until you think the leg feels better than it did before the injury. I just got down to 8 meter figure 8s, but I won't ride until I can jump up and down from the 48" box like it's nothing.

Unfortunately, if you wait until things feel just 'better', you'll risk blowing it again...gangstar is right on, it should feel better than before your injury before you even think about hitting it hard. The mark you're at (5-7months) is considered the most dangerous because everything 'feels' fine but you're still healing, so people tend to push more than they should at this time since they don't get as much pain. Since you didn't do cadaver, 9 months is perfectly normal, I wouldn't consider that overly conservative at all. I started skating at about 7-8 months because i'm not good enough on a skate to do anything stupid, so it helped me build back up the stabilizers and whatnot since i was just standing on the board and not tempted to try stuff.

Hamstring graft is a lot more flexible than patellar or cadaver graft, which is good for your ACL, but bad for your surrounding ligaments as they'll blow out easier without the support they're used to getting from the ACL. It can take something like twice the force of a patellar graft before breaking due to it's flexibility, which is why patellar is sometimes preferred despite the longer heal time.

Keep focused on your PT and workouts and just start hitting your legs HARD, lots of balance and bosu-squats and the like for stability. Get those stabilizers around your knee super strong, because when the healing's all done your 'new' knee will actually be stronger (ligament and tendon-wise) than your old one...good luck!

(Message edited by tonality on April 10, 2007)

around the 8 month mark is when most people get a full release, but sometimes the results of a biodex test showing your bad leg strenght incomparision to you good one will help the dr release you early....if i recall you have to be a minimum of 15% behind in strength of your good leg but i can't remember for sure. I had two on the same knee and 7 months out after the second i was snowboarding a good bit, it all depends on how pt is going and what your strength is right. Strong hamstring, quad, and calf will protect the graft better, if not more, than a brace will. I know that i 2 years later my knee finally feels as strong as it did before the surgery. Hope you can get out there soon. Im sure you could at least wake surf and cruize around on the board a little now.

I had patellar end of September 2005. I rode with a brace at 6.5 months (April 2006) and did not feel nearly 100%. I didn't push it for a month or so, at least, meaning I was always conscious of the knee and not landing in the flats, trying particular tricks, etc. Riding really helped me focus on upping the rehab with clear goals (riding) as the carrot. But, I have ridden enough to be able to come down on the other side of the wake consistently and stay within myself if need be. If I was more of a beginner, it would be riskier to ride.

By the end of the summer, I felt close to 100%...this season I feel 100%. Good luck...hard work but worth it.

If you had a double looped semitendinosis (hamstring) graft, then it will be just as strong as a pat. tendon. Overall graft revascularization takes time. Make very sure you have not only excellent non weight bearing strength, but weight bearing strength- squats, lunges, plyometric power, as well as coordination/agility- always comparing the surgery leg to the non-surgery leg. Also, mentally there are some hurdles to overcome once you are on the water- confidence is huge!

You don't want to be confined to bunny hopping over the wake, you want to stomp it!

Ron- in my particular case, I had really punny hamstrings so he tried a new procedure on me( love being the guinea pig) The doc normally told me that if the hamstrings were too puny once he cut me open to take the hamstring out that he would use a cadavar instead..well the doc decided to use my hamstrings anyway despite the fact that there were so puny,but instead of using 2 strans and doubling it over, he used 4 strans and doubled it over to make 8 strans wide. ITS incredibly tight, took me about 4 months to be able to straighten it. He was telling me that he liked the way it turned out so much that he is going to continue to reconsctruct puny hanstrings that way. at my 6 month checkup the other day he was telling me how he has had 3 patients with puny hamstrings like mine and did all of them the same way. he seemed pretty excited.

-Adam---That was correct about having to be at less than 15% deficit before releasing back to sports..... I also at the end of my therapy did the "Cybex test" which was to test the strength of one leg to the other. I was about a 7% deficit from one leg to the other.. actaully she was telling me that the norm for most peoples quads strength is around 60-70% of their body weight.... i had to do the test twice because the first time i scored a 85% on quad strength so she thought something was entered in wrong..so the second time i did the test i scored 87% on my quads. It was terrible having to do that damn test twice if you remember how tired your legs felt afterwords..

- But I rode the other day for the first time with my Donjoy brace and all the straps kept falling off.. not sure if you guys have this problem of having to restrap it everytime you fall but definetly is kind of annoying...


well i guess ill be sticking with the surfing for a few more months..... maybe i need to invest in the airchair.....

best way to keep the straps on....69 cent electrical tape from lowes or home depot, i buy it by the case. Just put it on and then wrap it around brace over each strap. Will keep it on the whole set and i think it is a little more supportive to...

and yes that test sucks, your legs are done, every now and again i would actually have to work out on it haha, those days i was done!

Ryan, another option for those straps is attaching snaps to them. You need to get the whole brace wet to get a realistic strap length determined, then attach snaps to your velcro points to offer a little more strength.

I had a pretty bad crash resulting in a partial ACL tear last October and have been rehabbing it since then (all of the dr's I saw said it is stable not and I probably did not fully tear it). Anyway, I have the donjoy brace to wear for certain activities like wakeboarding. I haven't gone back out yet but want to be ready. Should I expect the velco straps to just pull off during a crash? It fits pretty well on dry land but I'm sure that will change. Just wondering what everyone does to keep it in place. They also gave me a large neo sleeve to fit over the top and said people use that set-up for surfing. Has anyone tried that? thanks

neo sleve is really annoying...when you cut out the water usually can catch the straps and make them come undone and the same with falls. I have only heard of using electrical tape and like what matt said, putting snaps on them to keep them inplace.