brace gone – date set.

so things have been going pretty well the past couple of weeks.  I saw a couple of doctors for second opinions about two weeks ago.  Both said I didn’t need to wear the brace, but I continued to wear it anyways.  About that same time PT had me starting to do exercises without the brace.  As I’ve been getting stronger and more stable, I’ve been spending more time  without the brace.  This week I decided I’d try going to work without the brace, and so far so good.  So, yeah. Now I’m not t wearing the brace at all.

My physical therapist and I decided that it’d be best to save my covered visits until after the surgery since those will be very important.  So they set me up with an exercise plan to continue to work on until I have the surgery.  So instead of going into the PT office twice a week during office hours, I go to the gym 5 days a week after work (about 2hrs 3 times a week and about 1hr 2 times a week).  The workout is completely legs: quads, hamstrings, butt, calves, balance, and ~15 of ice time.

The surgery date is set for the beginning of next month, and I decided to go with the patella tendon.

life w/o an acl

I’ve been doing pretty well lately, especially today… I was checking out a doctor last week, and he told me that my MCL is down to a level 1 sprain, and that I don’t need to continue wearing the brace.  I’m still wearing it most of the time because that’s what the first doctor told me to do.  Plus, I figured it can’t really hurt.

But I’ve been feeling really good lately, and I feel like if I could deal with not playing any of the sports or activities that I really enjoy, I’d be done now.  Yesterday I hopped on the stationary bike without the brace to try things out.  The brace really hinders some of my movement, and the bike is supposed to be pretty safe, so I figured I’d try that out.  It went really well.

When I’m walking around in situations where there isn’t a risk of me needing to maneuver quickly or someone running into me, I go without the brace.  While I still have a slight limp, I think it’s partly because I’m in the brace so much that I’m getting used to moving with it on.  So I’m trying to not wear it so much and walk around the house more without it

surgery: yes, doctor: undecided

the knee is still stiff in the morning, but it loosens up much quicker.  Within an hour I have most of my range of motion.

PT is continuing twice a week.  They’ve got me doing more strenuous exercises to work my upper and lower leg muscles, and that’s followed by ice.  They also still have me doing daily exercises that involve more repetitions but with only my body or leg weight.

I can feel my leg getting stronger because I’m walking around almost normally now.  I only have a slight limp, and I think it’s because the brace hinders my range of motion. The brace also keeps me from moving around too quickly, which is probably good so I don’t twist my knee and end up causing more damage.

I’ve decided I’m getting the surgery.  Now I just have to pick a doctor.  I went in to see a second doctor who got a lot of great reviews, and thought he was okay.   There’s another one I want to check out, but I still need to make an appointment.

MRI

I called to schedule my MRI this morning, and they had an opening for this afternoon. So I took it.

It was an interesting experience. It wasn’t a full size MRI machine it like this one

It was a smaller one that could just do arms and legs like this

The machine was pretty noisy. It made lots of X-ray buzzing sounds and stepper motor grumbling…. I was trying to read but got tired and ended up taking a nap. The whole thing took about 45 minutes.

Afterward I asked the technician if he could show me some of the images. He quickly pulled them up and pointed out the missing ACL and torn MCL, but he wasn’t willing to say what he thought about my meniscus. That’s probably a good thing since he’s not a doctor and could probably be held liable in a lawsuit if push came to shove.

So I made an appointment for tomorrow to go over the MRI results. I’ll be making appointments with other doctors too to get their opinion and also “interview” them to see if they’re the one I would want operating on my knee.

Later that night, I picked up a yoga ball for $10 at Marshall’s so I don’t have to go to the gym to do my PT exercises.

Pain hasn’t been to bad 3/10. I can feel my leg getting stronger and my knee getting more stable. Swelling has gone down noticeably, but it’s still slightly swollen.  It was still stiff in the morning, but seems to loosen up more quickly.

Ortho appt

today was the first appointment with an orthopedic specialist. he looked at the x-rays, moved my knee around, and told me my ACL and MCL were torn. He said usually the ACL completely tears and doesn’t usually partially tear.

He told me to continue icing and using the brace, but he also told me to not use the crutches if I don’t have to. So he told me to start physical therapy and also to schedule an MRI. I scheduled the PT later that day, and the MRI has to get pre-approved by insurance first.