Recovering From Knee Surgery

Hey Guys,

In December of 1999, I dislocated my left knee skiing and partially tore the ligament in my left knee. (ACL - Anterior Cruciate Ligament) This was the first of four times (yes, my learning curve is a little flat) that I partially tore this ligament until there was nothing left in May of 2000. I went to the orthopedic doctor who specialized in medicine for the University of Louisville Sports teams and found out that I had completely torn the ACL in my left knee.

I scheduled the surgery in June of 2000 and ended up having a patella (knee cap) tendon replacement. This is where they cut out part of my patella tendon and recreated a make shift ligament that I had torn in my left knee. The doctor anchors the tendon in place with pins attaching it to the bone in my upper leg (femur) and bone in my lower leg (tibia). During the surgery the doctor also took out two pieces of cartilage which were torn as well.

Talk about pain! As if dislocating my knee four times to begin with to tear this ligament was not enough. Then of course they want you to start physical therapy as soon after surgery as you can to avoid the leg shrinking away to nothing.

I did the follow up physical therapy for 3 months or so after the surgery and at that time the doctor gave me a "green light" to go ahead and resume normal activities. Which I was able to do after getting fitted for the titanium knee brace.

Before the injury I was heavily involved in the sport of Judo and wanted to do whatever I could to get back to training and competing again. However, the pain from the knee injury and follow up surgery left me with little motivation to get back into anything.

It is coming up on 9 years since all of this happened and my path has changed dramatically from what I was doing at the time of the first injury (At the time I owned a computer company). Since then I got involved in another martial art (Systema - The Russian Martial Art) and body work (Ortho-Bionomy) as a way to get over the pain, tension, and discomfort I felt in my knee as a result of my knee experience.

This means I have had nearly 9 years worth of figuring out how to get my left knee and body out of pain after the physical therapist and the doctor said my knee was "ok to resume normal activities." In later posts I am including exercises as well as videos to help you get over your knee difficulties.

I would like for this as well as subsequent posts to serve as a beacon of hope for you who are looking to have a "normal" life after knee surgery.

Thanks,
Bill

P.S. - I will be posting random topics that come to mind unless there are any specific questions you would like to ask.