Ski injury - update

I can wait - thanks everyone it's really encouraging (Gareth I work in vet pharmaceuticals and spent all of last year working on a clinical trial of pain relief for dogs undergoing ACL repair!! how ironic! none of my clients will fix my knee unless I start barking, which may be likely). Looking forward to post drinking replies - I've also got a glass in hand and will close for tonight after learning how to do a smiley face :twisted: not sure thats the right one!! Men in Lycra here I come (does anyone else play "bad 80's suit spotting" when they ski? Perhaps a ruptured ACL is my comeuppance)
G'night.

Sue

Wow, been a while since I visited this site....but I got an email prompt telling me that this thread was active. I'll give you a brief reply here and if you wnat to know a bit more send me a pm and we can chat it through.

I didn't have the op in the end. Found a great knee man in Portsmouth (he fixes the football team) who also has an ACL deficient knee so knows where I'm coming from, he recommended a conservative approach initially. I worked really hard in the gym (the local hosp. run a great knee clinic) and we reveiwed my case in Sept 07 when I was booked for an arthroscopy to clean up the damaged tissue in my knee. At that appointment the surgeon put me through a whole load of tests and recommended that I not even have the scope. He felt that my knee was very good and was worried that a scope would mess it up. The crunch came when he said that if it was his knee he wouldn't be going in at all unless it was absolutely necessary.

Well I skied that Christmas - tentitavely and slowly and pretty much stopped after lunch each day, but this year...well we had a week in the Dolomites last month and I was on the first lift up in the morning and the last lift back at night and skied my little socks off.

I do wear a brace - a CTi from Technology in Motion in Wimbledon - it cost me around £400 but has been worth every penny as I also use it for dinghy sailing. I have good stability in the knee and have never suffered from it collapsing or giving way. But I still work hard at keeping the muscles strong and I work on proprioception all the time and I know that it is something that i will have to do for ever more, but it saves me from surgery so for me, it's worth it.

Go look at the kneegeeks forum on www.kneeguru.com a really useful site with loads of skiers with this injury.

Any questions, drop me a line.

Sharon

((hugs)) I feel your pain with what you went through .
So Glad your feeling better ,thats great news.
I am waiting for mine to be fixed at the moment.

Hi Sue. I have a clear head now :mrgreen:. Sorry, it’s a bit epic…

So, from this thread you can see that you can have a good result either with or without surgery [slamb :thumbup:] so, if you're given the choice, it's down to personal preference. However, I know of a lady that came to my knee class for 6 months to try and avoid surgery but saw no improvement and ended up having the op. On the other hand, someone else that comes had the op and it failed and had to be done again. There's no right answer.

My experience was that it was my left (mcl) leg that gave me the most trouble and I was, initially, wearing a brace given to me by the french doctor. I came back home and booked in with my gp who immediately referred me to a private consultant who had operated on 6 of the 8 doctors in that surgery (good recommendation I think!). A few weeks after the accident my right (acl) knee started to give way. This was the point when my consultant decided to do an mri which confirmed the tear.

He gave me the choice of whether to operate or not and I spent a few weeks deliberating. However, after reading a Pavel thread on here one day I knew I wanted to have the operation. The knee was giving way at regular intervals by this point. [I did do a teeny weeny little bit if skiing in tignes in march but both knees were very, very sore afterwards. don't tell anyone ;)]

So, I had the op on 18th April 2008 and was told 9-12 months total recovery. Unlike Gareth I didn’t have an arthroscopy and mine was a patella graft so my experience was a little different.

Nine months and one day post op I went to niederau for three days with the intention of sticking to the nursery slopes. That didn’t happen! Within half an hour I was up the mountain and gradually (and with the immense help of a few of the fantastic guys from this site) I skied as well as, if not better. Life is once again normal :thumbup:

In answer to your questions: I would definitely go private if you want to ski next season; I couldn’t drive on my mcl leg post injury for about 4 weeks (borrowed an automatic), post op I couldn’t drive on my acl for 2-3 weeks; I didn’t wear a support after coming back from france; pre-op I was limping badly on my mcl but not acl; hmmm, not sure about the riding/walking in july; I could swim on holiday (4 months post op) but wasn’t too comfortable with breast stroke; I take glucosomine and chondroitin sulphate and cod liver oil, who knows whether they’re doing anything but it can’t do any harm (apart from to the pocket!).

I really, really feel where you’re coming from. Any help I can give you would be a pleasure.

Slamb,
May I add some comments and observations.

First you must learn to "listen" to your body! You and only you know your limits. Do not let anyone tell you you can not do skiing!
I have had several minor knee operations and few persons told me "correct" information or up to date information!

I work in finding correct information so I know how to get to "original" sources ,,,many many physicians are great "technical surgeons" but have no idea about "follow up" information about skiers!
I can send you well over 50 studies on post-operative cases relating to knee operations!

The common thread in all studies is the attitude of the skier and how he/she skis after operation! Assuming you have a good competent surgeon you will be better AFTER operation. You will have better overall life style but also you will no doubt be a better skier!

The key is to prepare for operation and never never give up! What no one will not tell you is the pain level after the operation! You must take pain killers and you must "exercise" right after operation,,even if it is causing you to have tears in your eyes! Yes,you must move right after operation!

6 hours after my knee surgery I was flexing knee via a machine! Yes it hurts,,but you must!

After 3 months,,I was skiing on beginner hill with my surgeon since he did not believe me when I told him that I had "sneaked" off without family knowing (they had hidden my skis)! I was prepared and had some other skis at friend's house!
You must not others limit your skiing,,but you must "listen" to your body! Slow steps,,,,

My biggest barrier was my mind! I was afraid to "fully set edge" just in case!!! That is dangerous. In skiing you must get fit and then get on slope with "assurances"! Sitting back or holding back will cause you many falls , many problems!

Do not give up,,,trust me you will be a better skier!

Hope this helps you!

Respectfully,
Pavel

I injured my knee on only my second ski holday back in the early 90's. We had gone to Bulgaria and hired equipment! Bad idea.....oh well. Live and learn. Damaged medial, later and cruciate on right knee and medial ligament on left. Being Bulgaria they didn't have so much as a crepe bandage. I did ice it, but I had a knee like an elephant by the time I got home 4 days later and couldn't straighten my knee. Arthroscopy showed that my cruciate was "hanging by a thread" and the other ligaments were just like over-stretched rubber bands. The consultant told me to work hard on my quads, go ski next season and his words were "suck it and see" Because I had imobilised my knee immediately after the accident due to the pain, it took me 3 months of intensive physio to even get it fully straightened........however, I have managed to ski every season since then, but not without the odd twinge. I "tweeked" the medial ligament 3 years ago, but I started exercising it immediately despite the pain. Always carry my own bandages and ice pack and of course Ibuprofen just in case.

Maybe I'm repeating something that others already been written elsewhere, or that folks already know and I apologise if that is the case, but just read an interesting article.
It says that at altitude less oxygen gets to the muscles and research suggests the highest risk of accident is after 3pm on the third day of the holiday. This is because muscle fatigue reaches its peak 48 hours after the start of the holiday.
I'm sure we all know that it's famously that last run of the day that is the most dangerous. That's what happened to me. Was talked into doing one more run, when I should have given up with a vin chaud.

Eljay wrote:Maybe I'm repeating something that others already been written elsewhere, or that folks already know and I apologise if that is the case, but just read an interesting article.
It says that at altitude less oxygen gets to the muscles and research suggests the highest risk of accident is after 3pm on the third day of the holiday. This is because muscle fatigue reaches its peak 48 hours after the start of the holiday.
I'm sure we all know that it's famously that last run of the day that is the most dangerous. That's what happened to me. Was talked into doing one more run, when I should have given up with a vin chaud.

There's a lot of things we shouldn't do but life is for living, I normally have six days of skiing in a normal holiday
I'm gonna go for it big time lactic or no lactic acid. :lol: