Bob's ACL WWWBoard
Posted By: D. Hall
Date: Wednesday, 8 February 2006, at 12:38 p.m.

In Response To:
Re: ACL Revision Surgery at the Sanders Clinic, Houston

My daughter, Angie, had ACL revision surgery at the Sanders Clinic in Houston last month (January 6). I promised to report her progress on this board monthly, so if you're new to the site and are interested, please check the earlier posts in this thread. Angie tore her ACL graft on vault landing at a gymnastics meet in early December. We chose Dr. Sanders for her surgery mainly because he uses the outer third of the patellar tendon from the good leg for the ACL graft, and we felt that overall this was the best method for her.

At this point, Angie is doing everything the average person does in a normal fashion. She has had full flexion/extension since only a few days after surgery, and I think that has made everyday activities much easier. She has been coaching, going to school, and doing sports specific conditioning at her gym (pushups, pull-ups, dips, handstand walks, abs, etc.) for over two weeks now.

As far as her therapy goes: She rides a stationery bike for one hour each day (two sessions), keeping her heart rate up. She has slowly increased the overall resistance, but sets it higher for 5 minutes of each ride. Angie agrees with her doctor and many others who have posted to this board that the stationery bike is critical to her overall well-being - and she claims the more she rides it, the better her knees feel. Every other day her workout consists of leg presses, hamstring curls, calf raises, squats, Plyometric exercises (she is just starting these), and short jogs (30 yards) forward and backward concentrating on body mechanics. She also does lots of stretching. The doctor has given her the ok to jump on a trampoline (conservatively with proper body position), do bar mounts and swings, and walks/balancing exercises on low beam (regular beam, but it rests on the floor). He's also given her the ok to start yoga classes - now she just needs to figure out how to fit them in! We also have the Sportsmetrics program from the knee clinic in Cincinnati (on video) to review over the next few days and incorporate into her routine. Her reconstructed leg is already very strong, and her graft leg is slowly but surely gaining strength.

Angie's knees feel good in general, and she is feeling much better at this point than she did after her first ACL surgery. She has tweaked things on a couple occasions - both times after "forgetting" that she couldn't jump (this was about 10 days after surgery), run, or drop down on her knees. On those days she was in more pain than normal, but felt better the following day. She also overdoes it a few days each week (she has not let surgery interfere with her typical 18-year-old ways - shops and dances way too much in addition to everything else), so she'll end the day with her legs elevated w ice bags. She takes an enzyme formula and Ibuprofen for discomfort, and a few other supplements (including Nutriex Sport) for general health. She's done well with her diet, so the combination of eating right and riding the bike for an hour have helped her keep her weight down.

We live on the East Coast, so we had some concerns initially about being so far away from Angie's doctor and therapist. To the contrary, Dr. Sanders has been more accessible than our local doctors have been previously, and he quickly addresses any questions we have, so that has been great. His therapist, Ed, follows up with outlines, clips, and email/phone support. Angie misses the one-on-one support of a therapist, so she now spends a few sessions each week with a trainer. The trainer is incorporating the protocol from Ed into her overall body conditioning program.

So far, we're glad we made the decision to go with Dr. Sanders' procedure. Taking her graft from the good leg has helped balance out the trauma, giving her the ability to do everyday tasks much sooner and with greater ease. Rehabbing both legs has not been an issue for her - she would rather work them both out, anyway.

I'll continue to post her progress each month for those of you who are interested. Good luck to everyone in this great forum!

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