ACL Rehab is harder than other knee surgeries for several reasons.
1. Your anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, is one of the biggest ligaments in your body.
2. It is one of the few ligaments that will not heal itself. Most ligaments are surrounded by soft tissues that provide a healing blood supply. Not your ACL as it is surrounded by joint fluid.
3. It cannot be repaired by stitching the ends together because stitches won’t hol,d and it has to be replaced.
4. Your ACL graft may have been harvested from your knee or thigh, causing donor site injury that slows down rehab. That is why some people get a cadaver tendon for a graft. The graft is placed using an arthroscope.
Rehab must protect the graft while new ligament cells have to grow and revive the graft. This takes a year or more!
A successful outcome only happens if a patient completes long-term rehab. It is difficult, but it usually gives excellent near-normal knee function.Walker Wynkoop, MD, lives in Los Banos and is a Board-Certified Orthopedic Surgeon with 30 years of experience. He works at Surgical Affiliates of California. Please email questions to: Doc@Wynmd.com
