ACL Injuries

ACL injuries are in the news more these days. The latest famous victim, Tiger Woods who announced that his season is over due to a torn ACL which he has been trying to play though. Also, some interesting stats also come out today from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons:

• About 200,000 ACL injuries occur annually in the United States, often in conjunction with damage to other knee ligaments and cartilage. (wow!)
  
• Doctors perform roughly 100,000 ACL reconstructive surgeries nationwide each year, mostly on an outpatient basis.
  
• ACL surgeries have a long-term success rate of 82 percent to 95 percent, depending on numerous factors.
  
• Rehabilitation takes about half a year, or longer for certain athletic activities.Post-surgical limitations can include stiffness, some loss of motion and less stability for the knee than before the injury.
  
• Sports commonly associated with ACL tears and ruptures include football, tennis, basketball, soccer and collision with dogs! (just kidding)
  
• Women have a higher rate of ACL injuries than men, for reasons ranging from estrogen's effects on ligaments to gender differences in the alignment of the pelvis and legs

A great website for ACL realted injuries is http://www.aclsolutions.com/default.php

You can actually watch the ACL surgery on youtube!

So I tore my ACL

Thank you for visiting Fix My Left Knee blog!

I am a very active guy and have been active for almost 25 years. I normally enjoy a wide range of activities. Running, biking, Soccer and crossfit.I used to run track in high school in the worse possible condition (concrete pavements and roads in Mumbai) in the worse possible shoes. In the past 25 years I have numerous friends who had knee injurues specially torn ACL. I was the lucky one who never had any injuries or surgeries.

Alas my luck ran out 2 weeks ago. On Saturday, Dec 6Th 2008 at 9:25 a.m. I was doing my morning workout at Crossfit. We finish the workout with 4X200 sprints. I was doing the last sprint and barely a yard away from finish line when all of the sudden a dog (belongs to one of the coaches) while chasing a ball collided with my left knee.

Immediatly I was in lot of pain and fell on the floor. The pain was nothing like I had experienced before. I just couldn't get up or put my foot on floor. The good folks at crossfit Carl, Meghan and Gretchen (Thanks guys) took me to UCSF Emergency room.

The diagnosis was that it's a torn MCL (inside part of the knee)but I need to get a MRI done to confirm. I went to my Orthopedic on Monday for an MRI. It was a lot worse, I had shattered my ACL, Medial Mencisu and MCL. I have to get a surgery (my 1st time ever). This is not the way I imagined tearing my ACL. I was hoping a trying to score the winning goal at world cup or skiing the black diamond at Tahoe!

In the next few months I will share my experiences of ACL surgery and recovery.