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I crashed last monday. Found out today that I tore my ACL, MCL and LCL. The ACL is gonna need to be replaced (surgery required) before i can ride or walk again. I am gonna be out of action for a while. Doc says I will be back to normal strength in nine months. Hopefully I will be able to ride again before then. I won't be able to do the AIDS ride though. That said, I am rockin the crutches with skill, yo.
Ben.... so sorry to hear about the crash and I hope you recover quick so you get back on the saddle. We gotta got to get you on the rides... Crutch Mob still on? Get well soon...
re what else can you tear: there is also the PCL and the patellar tendon (technically a ligament) but no one every messes them up . . . except for McGahee who did all four, PCL/MCL/ACL/LCL in the BCS game.
Good luck man. Take the rehab slow and be cautious = remember this is about being able to run around with your kids later. I've seen mad peeps make it back from this so I'm sure you will too.
"Isn't it almost always patellar graft these days? " It used to be, but now they're doing the hamstring a lot and the cadaver graft.
There are pros and cons (including possible complications) for each one. But you can never rule out risk. I didn't want patellar for a number of reasons, and didn't want to do cadaver for fear of infection. Murphy's law; I did hamstring and got a staph infection from the surgery anyway. Ten days in the hospital later, and two surgical flush-outs, and I was fine. I'm 100% now, thankfully, but after a long bull-shit ordeal.
Based on all that, I can't strongly recommend one over the other. Probably patellar if I had to recommend. The ish with that is that it focuses all your surgical injury on the knee and those patellars can become really tight and painful in some instances after surgery.
thanks peeps. yer awesome. to answer the questions.
1. another bike hit me from behind, going around a corner. bikes got tangled, couldn't recover, went down on left knee still clipped in. bike was loaded up with touring gear and kept going, twisting and pulling the knee.
2. LCL and MCL should heal OK, they have a good blood supply. The ACL is singular proof of the non existence of god, by virtue of its stunning lack of design it cannot heal itself, so I'm gonna have to steal one from a dead person. Though I should be back to full strength in 9 months I hope I can get some riding in before then.
I've torn my ACL in my right knee twice from soccer and my meniscus is still all tore up even after some bio-staples in it. I did the "dead man walking" approach both times because it cuts down on the recovery time since you're not ripping something from you. Never had any infection problems at all. My only advice is to not rush getting back to 100% too soon. That's why I had two surgeries instead of just one. And I know the ACL I'm riding on now isn't perfect either, but I'm not gonna stop riding until I need to.