ACL Repairs – Should You Or Shouldn’t You?

In my last post, I wrote about how to tear an ACL.  But, of course, the story doesn’t end there.  I’m stubborn, and at the ripe old age of 30, I was faced with the question of whether to go through with an ACL repair.

A How To Guide To ACL Repairs

Within a week of tearing my ACL, a co-worker was chasing her kids through the house, twisted to grab one as he went by, and went “Pop!”

Another torn ACL.

It turns out that a torn ACL is one of the most common sports injuries, with the greatest prevalence of ACL tears being among female athletes, who are 2-8 times more likely than their male counterparts.

Lucky me.

So, here we were, two working adults of similar age in life, looking at all the options for acl repairs.  Naturally, we discussed the subject at great length.  These were the options we found.

Do Nothing

It’s important to point out that ACL tears do not heal.  Once that ligament is torn, short of surgery, there is no way it will be repaired.  Having said that, by one estimate, as many as 250,000 people in the U.S. tear their ACL every year, and many of those tears are expected to go undiagnosed.

What does this mean?  Many people choose to forgo surgical intervention, and simply undergo physical therapy.  The purpose of physical therapy in this case, is to strengthen the muscles around the knee to stabilize it against the loss of the ACL.  This is a viable option, particularly for people who have lower activity levels.

This is the option my co-worker chose.

Have Surgery

There are a variety of ways ACL repairs are conducted these days.

The preferred option is an autograft, where tissue is taken from the patient and used to rebuild the ACL.  The most common option here is to take the middle third out of the patellar tendon and use it in the reconstruction.  Less commonly, tissue is taken from the hamstring.

The other option is called an allograft, which consists of using tissue is taken from a cadaver to rebuild the ACL.  Tissue usually comes from the patellar tendon in this case, as well.

I chose surgery.

While I would have preferred the autograft, complicating factors dictated I would have to go the allograft route.

ACL Reconstruction Surgery

Interestingly enough, the majority of ACL reconstruction surgeries these days are arthroscopic procedures, and are conducted on an outpatient basis.  There are many sites that describe the mechanics of the surgery in great detail.

So, I showed up at the hospital around 6am and they wheeled me back into the operating room an hour later.  By early afternoon, I was in the van headed home.

That’s not to say I was actually coherent.  Fortunately, both my wife and my parents were there to handle me, because I was a complete mess.

This was when the fun actually started.  The recovery…

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