A slow intro to Physio...

Just under 7 days after the op and had my first 'formal' session of physio on Tuesday.  I say 'formal in inverted commas as I've been doing a load of quad tightening and straightening of the leg over the pas t few days, but this was the first session with a physio at the hospital.

And I must say, it was quite a pleasant surprise as the pain wasn't excrutiating.  Now don't get me wrong, it definitely smarted a bit, but I wasn't nearly in tears for most of the time, and after my ACL recovery, that's progress I can tell you!

I think the main reason for this is the lack of exercises I can do at the moment.  Those of you who have had  a PCL repair will know it is so important not to over-bend the knee in the first few weeks to avoid stretching the graft and ending up back at square one.  So I'm only allowed to do stiff leg tightening and raises (to activate and try and minimise quad mnuscle reduction) and some limited extensions from about 15' of bend.  The only potential pitfall was the passive straightening done by the physio.  I was apprehensive about this for two reasons, firstly not wanting to over-stretch that damned graft, and secondly 'cos it hurts.  But luckily I already have a significant bend in my knee, measured at over 80' (I'm not allowed to go beyond 90' in the first 6 weeks so to reach 80' already is great).  As I've got a good range of motion already I think the physio let me off lightly.  And as there is not much for them to do right now, I don't got back for a couple of weeks.

So all good so far, although I know I'm storing up for some hard graft ahead.  Gotta make this op stick so the re-hab is so important.  Despite work pressures I've been keeping up my home physio for once, you can always do more but I least I'm doing regular exercises.  In case no-one reads this I'll tell myself, Well Done Paul, keep it up!

Take care out there.

Paul

Day 5 - An unscheduled return

Things did not go to plan overnight!

I did not have a great night's sleep, feel a little bit like I have some virus of some sort and the knee was a little sore.  Woke up to go downstairs at about 1.00 a.m. to find a leaking dressing on my knee.  My first thoughts were here we go again as I've suffered infections in wounds after my last two operations and this really plays havoc with the recovery.  A couple of co-codamol and a cup of tea later it was back to bed to try and get some more sleep.

I had a reassuring visit to the hospital where I had the surgery.  Nurse Carol dressed  my wounds again and says no infections, yippee!  I also had a reasonably pleasant experience asking for stronger pain relief.  This will be the subject of another blog, but for once I was not treated like a junkie and someone actually listened to the problem and prescribed a stronger dose.  Wow!

More later.

Paul

Other blogs

When I found out about my latest surgery I had a good look round the internet to try and find out as much as I could about the surgery (my surgeon was somewhat vague about the operations and the aftermath).  If you've tried this you'll know there is lots of stuff out there about ACL repairs, but not a huge amount about PCL repairs, particularly surgical repairs as in most cases a problematic PCL is treated through physio rather than the knife.

I did manage to find a couple of useful (if rather scary) blogs out there, so I'd like to introduce you to:- 

Skinny Girl

Suhaimi

and

Charles

Thanks for the info guys, great stuff to read before I went in.

Skinny Gurl's story scared the bejeebies out of me as it's quite a tale, but it was comforting to then read Charles' story which wasn't quite so harrowing and as he's back playing sport within 5 months shows what can be done.

My problem at the time was I read Skinny Gurl's blog a week before I read Charles', so spent a week absolutely dreading the op and the recovery, so much so I nearly cancelled on a couple of occasions.  Having been through lots of knee operations before, I know how hard the physio is, and from these accounts the physio for a PCL repair is even worse.  It's very hard to go into something knowing the pain on the other side, but I think you have to keep thinking of the final outcome.  Given my knee's history I know I'll probably never play competitive contact sport again, but if I can run (not jog, but proper run), play a bit of tennis and most of all be able to walk up a mountain (OK hill, we don't really get much in the way of mountains in UK)  pretty much pain free then I'll be a happy man and it will all have been worthwhile.  That's my goal and I keep it in sight at all times. 

The moral of this story is don't be put off, don't be too scared, keep you eye on the goal and it will see you through some bad times.

Paul

The first post

I'll start with a big hello, so Hello.

As you can see from my profile, my name is Paul and I've got a bit of history with my right knee (well I suppose I've got as much history with my left knee, 35 years of it, just not as eventful or painful....).

I am 3 days post a PCL/MCL allograft repair in my right knee, which is now my eighth operation on this knee over the past 18 years, and the third in the past 12 months.  This blog is mainly going to deal with my re-cuperation from this most recent surgery, with a few other pearls of wisdom thrown in.

For a bit of history I'll quickly run through my previous operations (as far as I can remember them, we are talking 18 years now and I struggle to remember last week most of the time).  I originally hurt my knee playing football when some great lump of a midfielder landed on my knee when it was out-stretched and tore my MCL and partially tore my ACL.  Operation 1 was an MCL repair followed by lots of physio and fitness work, returning to football 3 months after the op.  All was fine until one fateful day 7 weeks later, where on a rare foray forward from my position of centre defence, I played a neat one two on the edge of the opposition area, sent the keeper the wrong way (to be fair the keeper went the way I was aiming...) and scored.  Here's where the problems began again.  

My celebration consisted of jumping up and yelling 'Yey' following by landing and going 'Ow'. (My Dad still has a great newspaper cutting which says 'unfortunately Paul injured himself celebrating and took no further part in the game', he loves bringing it out on family occasions and whenever I'm in hospital).

 Something had popped in my knee, subsequently found out to be my ACL, MCL and PCL.  Great.  So, a further MCL and ACL repair later (note two separate operations, three months apart therefore two sets of post-op physio and recovery, I tell you medical folk can be cruel sometime) I was back to some semblence of health, but not playing football anymore.

Things settled down for a couple of years, increasing pain lead to an arthroscopic clear out of some debris in 2001, then it all went quiet again until 2005 when I tore my cartilage.  I had a partial meniscectomy (I think that's how you spell it) followed by a wonderful 3 months off work watching the Ashes.  I was a Paramedic at the time and the knee just wasn't up to it.  A change of career and I was back to work.

The next fateful event was a rather beery evening when a work colleague mentioned his team were short of players and did I fancy a game.  Sounded like a great idea so 15 hours later I've dusted off my old kit and am taking part in my first rugby game for 15 years.  Surprisingly my knee was OK for this game and the next 18 months, painful after a game but nothing a bit of ice and a few gin and tonics couldn't sort.  

Roll forward to December 2008 and a rather sticky, muddy looking field which I described as a bit of a knee tweaker.  Turned out this was a premonition and tweak my knee I did.  Initially diagnosed as a cartilage tear (partial meniscectomy in April 2009) followed by diagnosis of a failure of my Kennedy LAD ACL repair (revision surgery in September 2009) to a weak/stretched/torn PCL/MCL repaired by allograft three days ago in April 2010.

Phew, still with me?  Good (and if not, you'll never read this bit so I can call everyone who didn't make it this far slackers!).

This blog will now mainly focus on my recovery from this repair and will wander around talking drugs (mainly legal ones!), physio, braces, crutches, work and any other meandering thoughts that crop up every now and then.  So I hope you'll join me again.

Paul