28F, 51kg.

Did my ACL+LET surgery mid February. Completed 6 months.

Current lifting weights:
Deadlift - 75kg
Barbell Backsquat - 65kg
Leg extension - single leg - 10kg 15 reps, 15kg possible
Leg curls - single leg - 15-20 kg
Chest press - 12.5kg dumbells
Dumbell row - 15kg dumbells
Bicep curls - 10kg dumbells

Physiotherapy is too expensive so I refer my own youtube and medical papers on progress rate and next step. I make my own weekly chart on what to each week. There is a new chart every week.

Can do jumps now. Double and single. Have been running for a while too. Max speed till
Now is 6 noted in strava app..

Proud of myself
For all the effort and work I did not being able to afford rehab PT.
Hows this growth?

I just wanted to mention that there is a wealth of information online you can use to improve your post TKR experience. Your health providers may not tell you everything you need to know to more successfully navigate your recovery. If that’s the case, you can find the information you need online to fill any gaps they have left.

I am 8 weeks post MUA and discovered that I am ready to graduate from intensive, formal PT to ROM maintenance. At this point my excessive scar tissue has been defeated, and I can now focus on home exercises to strengthen the deep tissues surrounding my knee replacement.

Further research revealed what those exercises should be as well their duration and frequency.

Neither my doctor nor physical therapist has said a word about any of this. If I hadn’t proactively searched for it, I think I would have been at a loss now regarding how to proceed.

And this isn’t the first time vital information was withheld from me. When I was doing the exercises to increase my flexion, my physical therapist gave me a sheet of instructions that simply said that once I had reached the proper bend I should hold it. Period.

It didn’t say how long to hold it. So I looked it up and found that the hold should last 15-30 seconds. Later I asked her about this, and she verified that holding for this length of time was best.

SO WHY DIDN’T SHE TELL ME SO IN THE FIRST PLACE!! It infuriates me that she left me to stumble around in the dark looking for answers.

So I encourage everyone on here to take some time to investigate what’s going on with your knee. You are likely to find additional or clarifying information that will help you have a more successful, less frustrating recovery experience.

This is one of those questions where there really isn't a useful universal deadline.

Many patients start practising stairs with support quite early in rehabilitation. But being able to use stairs and having stairs feel comfortable and natural again are two different milestones.

Going upstairs requires strength. Coming downstairs can often feel harder because it requires good control of the muscles around the knee.

Early on, many people use a handrail and take one step at a time. As strength, balance, movement and confidence improve, stairs gradually become easier.

The important thing is not to compare your week three with somebody else's week three. Look at whether your own mobility and confidence are gradually improving.

For those who've had a knee replacement: was going up or coming down stairs harder for you?

Hey guys, i’m 21F and 5 days post quadriceps autograph acl reconstruction. I injured it in a muay thai match. I just have some questions to make sure everything is going good and i’m doing everything i should. Here is my story:

I woke up after surgery, and apparently the nerve block didn’t work (they did not explain why), so i was in 10/10 excruciating pain until they gave me Norco and it kicked in. I was in a locked brace at 0 degrees and my acewrap dressing. i barely did anything the first day besides went home and rested. Up until today, i’ve been taking Norco everyday and slowly been weaning it down from taking it every 6 hours to 1-2x a day. mostly at night and in the morning.
On postop day 2, i went to physical therapy as scheduled. At this point i was still experiencing a lot of pain near my quad/knee especially with raising my leg/keeping my leg suspended in air. My physical therapist took me out of the knee brace which idk if he was supposed to do, and tried to help me swing my leg up onto the table i was sitting on so i could lay down. While he was helping me lift my leg to swing it so I could lay down, i screamed because it hurt so bad and immediately start bawling- i felt a sharp pain. Is this normal? And was he supposed to do this? I just hope this physical therapist knows what he’s doing.
After that, he tried to make me do heel slides out of my brace but i couldn’t do much and he pretty much just gave me homework for the weekend to do quad sets, glute sets, and heel slides at home until he sees me again (which will be tomorrow since i’m postop day 5 now).
Since then, i’ve been doing the exercises listed above and bearing a tiny bit of weight on the leg but i’m still walking in crutches. I’ve also been trying to elevate my leg but it HURTS to not have anything behind my knee so idk if i’m doing it as much as i should because it hurts and is so uncomfortable and makes me so sore afterward. My ankle and feet swelling is gone, my knee is a little bit swollen still. Like i said, i have also been weaning myself off my Norco and just try to take it at night and in the morning. I’ve also only had a BM once so i’m gonna try to take more dulcolax daily.
I’m nervous about PT tomorrow bc i want everything to go good but i also do want to hit all the milestones so i recover and I want to eventually get back to muay thai at the level i previously did. Is this realistic?
I also have a few other concerns:
-Today mainly i’ve been experiencing sharp stinging-like pains ocassionally around my knee at rest. Is this normal?
-I have pain on parts of my knee like the inside side of it where no incision is, that’s where a lot of my pain is. Is this normal even tho there’s no incision site there?
- Are the sharp intense pains with certain movements i described normal? It just doesn’t feel right because they are sharp and very painful with certain movements/activation of muscles. Will the sharp pains ever go away? i feel like im always scared to do movements because of it.
-i just feel so weak still and hope ive been doing enough exercising, but i dont want to overdo it.
Please yall-anybody- just weigh in my entire story and make sure everything is normal/everything is happening according to how it should be. There’s so much conflicting info lol, including my surgery center’s
Any advice is more than welcome as well
Thanks💕

I’m approaching my 6th week out from a TKR. Has anyone experienced or is experiencing the feeling of their knee catching upon standing up from a sitting position? When does this ever feel like any wear near a normal knee?

I need advice a surgeon did transtibial vertical anterior positioning technique O have been told it’s an outdated 25 yr old technique no longer used the technique that’s used is the anatomical positioning moving forward the surgeon stated a screw fractured during that first procedure it was left inside and then the surgeon added another screw immediately ar4030c-10 and he swapped out the biocomp tibia screw for an ar4020p-10 PEEK screw he also added a graft link kit so in total I had 2 screws biocomp in femur plus graft link plus non biodegradable screw in tibia ar4020 p-10

I was sent home outpatient surgery very next day I was in excruciating pain I had to go back to the hospital x ray showed hemothrosis and 2 displaced tibia bone plug days later I was rushed for another full reconstruction just 9 days later the same dr did same transtibial technique midway in the original tunnel at the end of the surgeries he added another graft link and another PEEk non biodegradable in the femur and another Peek in the tibia portion and another graft link and added a swiverlock at the end he did not remove the first surgeries bone block either so I had in total 2 graft links 1 swiverlock 2 biocomp femur 1 peek tibia screw inserted in the femur location and two peek non biocomp tibia screws all in my knee Immediately after surgery I found myself with constant spasm foot drop and nerve issues for 5 months straight imaging reported new meniscus tears graft impingement another surgery was done different surgeon he removed the graft tissue left both bone blocks in femur and tibia from the initial 1st surgery and second stated he was only focused on the graft impingement and removing the femur Peek screw that was in the roof of the notch when he did that the foot drop he said I have grade 2/3/4 cartilage damage which I did not have before and he had to perform a MENISECTOMY

Anyhow moving forward I was told I have suspected nerve damage acl deficient and still fragments are inside my seen in the notch. I went to a educational doctor he said I would need to remove both bone blocks check for infection if no infection then set up for a stage 1&2 approach and use hamstring cause the both cadaver graft that was used was two big for my knee anatomy plus the tunnels are to widened and over stuffed I need to have the bone filled but when I try to talk to surgeon they refuse to touch the knee and send me to pain management in a post traumatic osteoarthritis I feel like I’m pretty much doomed I don’t know what to do I have severe pain unable to bear weight and have increased numbness and electrical shocks I’m afraid my femur is going to fracture because in the mri liquid is surrounding the remaining hardware and it’s causing osteolysis that the educational dr said was happening, and basically my bone is not healing I am know having d dime r elevation and groin multiple enlarged lymph nodes I don’t think I have infection cause esr and crp is normal I don’t know what to do I’m looking for a surgeon that can help me get all the bone block out and the fragments and give my knee a fighting chance. Can anyone give me advice on what I should do. Please help

Hi all! I’m on the end of day 4 post op. Has anyone else experienced Venus blood pooling in the foot of your surgical leg? I already messaged my PT and my surgeon. Whenever I get up to use my crutches I am allowed to weight bear and I do my foot turns a purpleish bluish color and my leg feels heavy and uncomfortable. I don’t crutch around for too long and then I will go and sit back on the couch. Within about 30 seconds my foot appears normal again. When I stand up it happens almost instantly same thing about 30 seconds. I have an ice machine I have an elevation pillow I elevate all night and I get up every hour to move. Heel slides four times a day and ankle pumps. I see my PT on Thursday and my first post surgery visit on Friday. Anyone else experience this that could give me some insight and some reassurance? My surgeon just told me to keep doing ankle pumps and elevating my leg over my heart for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Thank you!

Greetings all,

About a month ago I (23M, Belgium) fell in a really weird way. My friend saw me fall and told me on the spot he was pretty sure my ACL was torn. Fast forward to my MRI a few weeks later, and he was right.

MRI findings:

• ACL completely torn
• MCL partly torn, possibly with a small bone fragment at the medial femoral condyle (a "Stieda fragment")

Activity level: Currently I only do fitness (3–5x/week) and run 5–10km (1x/week) — no soccer, football, or other pivoting/contact sports right now. I did do contact sports for years in the past (kickboxing, muay thai, BJJ), but stopped because of the relatively high injury risk. Even after stopping, though, I liked knowing I had the "freedom" to go back to it if I ever felt like it.

Surgeon's assessment:

A few days ago I had my consultation. He reviewed the MRI and asked whether I currently play soccer, football, or any other pivoting/contact sport. Based on my answer, he advised against ACL reconstruction for now — his plan is that if I ever feel my knee "give way" during daily life, fitness, or running, I call him and we do the surgery then.

He followed up with two things that surprised me:

1. Recent research shows ACL surgery is associated with an increased risk of arthritis, citing Barenius et al. (2014) and Ferrero et al. (2023) — see sources below.
2. Some surgeons' compensation is tied to the number of surgeries they perform, which (in his view) can bias some colleagues toward operating even when it isn't necessarily in the patient's best interest.

I thanked him for the honesty. He will still perform an arthroscopy to "clean up" the knee regardless.

Where that leaves me:

I left a bit confused, honestly, I always assumed ACL reconstruction was the "correct" default in this situation. When I got home I looked into the studies he mentioned, but I also found research pointing the other way: the KANON trial and Tsoukas et al. (2016), both of which found no significant difference in long-term arthritis rates between surgical and non-surgical management (sources below).

So now I'm torn (no pun intended). I obviously want to avoid arthritis down the line, but I'm also worried that one more bad twist could cause further damage — e.g., to the meniscus — which would raise my arthritis risk anyway, surgery or not.

Current physical status:

• Pain-free walking around the house
• Mild pain when shopping/walking around the city for a while with my girlfriend, or standing up after sitting for a long time
• Knee feels stable walking and on stairs
• ROM: ~90–97% extension, ~85% flexion

One more wrinkle:

I start my first real job in about a month — a corporate role at a Big 4 firm — which is genuinely bad timing for ACL surgery, since the first few weeks are important for onboarding and integrating with the team.

What I'm hoping to get from this sub:

Has anyone been in a similar spot — borderline knee stability, no current pivoting/contact sports, and conflicting research pulling you in different directions? How did you end up deciding between surgery now vs. a wait-and-see approach? Any regrets either way, looking back?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Sources referenced above:

• Barenius, B., Ponzer, S., Shalabi, A., Bujak, R., Norlén, L., & Eriksson, K. (2014). Increased risk of osteoarthritis after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: A 14-year follow-up study of a randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 42(5), 1049–1057. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546514526139
• Ferrero, S., Louvois, M., Barnetche, T., Breuil, V., & Roux, C. (2023). Impact of anterior cruciate ligament surgery on the development of knee osteoarthritis: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis comparing non-surgical and surgical treatments. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open, 5(3), 100366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocarto.2023.100366
• Frobell, R. B., Roos, E. M., Roos, H. P., Ranstam, J., & Lohmander, L. S. (2010). A randomized trial of treatment for acute anterior cruciate ligament tears. New England Journal of Medicine, 363(4), 331–342. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0907797 (KANON trial, original 2-year results)
• Frobell, R. B., Roos, H. P., Roos, E. M., Ranstam, J., & Lohmander, L. S. (2013). Treatment for acute anterior cruciate ligament tear: Five year outcome of randomised trial. BMJ, 346, f232. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f232 (KANON trial, 5-year follow-up)
• Tsoukas, D., Fotopoulos, V., Basdekis, G., & Makridis, K. G. (2016). No difference in osteoarthritis after surgical and non-surgical treatment of ACL-injured knees after 10 years. Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy, 24(9), 2953–2959. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00167-015-3593-9

I’ve heard a good amount of people have had success with these surgeries, but I was wondering if any of you have had knee instability even after having surgical intervention.

I know everyone is different so I’m sure for some of you surgery didn’t fix everything. But I wanted to get a sense of how common this is.

Hi everyone,

I’m 26 and trying to decide between TTO (ventromedialization) and continuing PT.

I’ve never dislocated my patella and don’t really have instability. My problem is patellofemoral pain, maltracking/abnormal loading and cartilage damage.

My pain varies a lot, but I rarely go more than 1–2 weeks completely symptom-free anymore. I’m still very active, but often with consequences. For example, yesterday I danced and jumped for several hours with pain on and off, and this morning I initially struggled to fully weight-bear on my legs.

Sometimes I can walk long distances on flat ground relatively fine, while stairs (especially downstairs), squatting, cycling, jumping or hiking with elevation can cause pain or a bad flare-up afterwards.

I’ve received conflicting opinions from 2 great doctors: one experienced knee surgeon recommended immadiate arthroscopy + TTO, while another suggested targeted PT first and surgery only if that fails (He said that based on the x-ray, the lesion was not serious) . I’ve also recently started with a new PT focusing more on hip/glute strength and overall biomechanics (all together I'm little more than 4 weeks in to PT).

I’d especially like to hear from people who had TTO for pain/maltracking/cartilage overload WITHOUT recurrent dislocations.

Was it worth it? Did PT work instead? Did TTO eventually give you a more reliable knee with a higher activity tolerance? If you could choose again, would you have the surgery?

I know Reddit can’t make the medical decision for me. I’m mainly looking for experiences from people in a similar situation.

Thank you!

I’m 4 weeks post tearing my ACL and meniscus playing rec league basketball with the guys at work. I was the oldest guy on the court and we were beating a bunch of 16-17 year olds. My knee gave out as I went for a layup and I can still hear/feel the sensation of the pops at the inside and outside of my knee before it buckled and I went to the ground. I may or may not have gotten bumped on the way up bc the kid guarding me came up and kept apologizing to me after the game. Nice gesture but I told him it wasn’t his fault.

The worst part is that my wife is pregnant with our first baby and due at the end of the August. I’ve scheduled my surgery for Oct 12th. I figure we’ll have a month to get into a good groove with the baby and then I’ll get surgery.

The timing is terrible and I can’t help feeling like a selfish dumbass for blowing out my knee right before my baby is born. I just want to get the surgery over with as soon as possible so that I can get on the road to recovery asap.

How long post surgery will it take for me to not be completely useless and be able to help my wife with the baby?

I had bilateral knee replacement three years ago, followed by a revision on both a year later. Now two years after the revision I am still having pain. My doc has tested for everything including allergy and infection.

Most pain comes from walking more than average and more strenuous than usual. But some days just the walking I do at work is painful. I also have noticed I am walking with a limp. I can ride my e-bike for miles, but when I get off and the following day the pain is bad. Also stairs are difficult, up worse than down.

My orthopedic surgeon is out of ideas, and referred me to Mayo Clinic, which my insurance company swiftly denied. I feel so defeated!

I am curious if anybody else has had this happen. Did you get better? Did you get a diagnosis? I don't know where to turn now!

i am about a little over 3 months post op of ACL ALL and OATS. My bend is really good and my extension is at like 2-1 degrees, i did have a quad graft but it feels hard to work towards getting to 0. I am already doing a lot of normal stuff like body weight squats, leg press, and some plyometric training as well.

Does anyone else have trouble with getting to straight? or 0 degrees? and does anyone still have pain in their leg when they walk or try to straighten it? i am very curious