Just a bit of back ground on me.......... I am a 25 year old
female and i am an exercise instructor/sports coach/teacher and my main hobby
is Netball... Last year i took a lot of work on in the exercise industry as
well as carrying on with playing netball weekly. This combined i have been told
that it was the inevitable that my ACL would rupture. One of the main reasons
is because i am a woman!! i had no hope :( Because i coach netball to girls on
a weekly basis i really would like to find out if there is prevention to this
or are these girls going to find themselves in the same situation as me in
years to come! It is something to do with the twisting of the knee and the ACL
rubbing against the bones in the knee and slowly fraying away like rope until
one day POP its gone!! As you can imagine i was devastated!!! it has changed my
life completely...........
It is now 10 days after my ACL reconstruction surgery with a
hamstring graft and my knee is starting to feel a lot better.
I had lots of numbness to begin with and the feeling is now
starting to come back. i still have quite a bit of bruising but the wounds look
quite good. I did have a feeling of pulling on my stitches but now all the
dressing has come off and it feels a lot better.
Before i came out of the hospital i meet with a physio
therapist. He went through 23 exercises with me!!! it was so over whelming and
i was so drugged up with pain killers i couldn’t take it in!! He gave me the
sheet with all the exercise on to help.
i started doing a few exercise
2days afterwards; One was leaning forward to touch toes and another was bringing
my foot towards my body. I was quickly booked in with physio. I went 3 days
ago! He gave me some different exercise to do.
Stretching out the hamstring and stretching out the calf
muscle. I lengthen out my leg in front of me on a bed, other leg off the bed
and just leaning forward. Then calf stretches you do this by getting a long
towel and put on the top half of foot and pull foot towards me. Hold for 30secs 5 times a day.
Re firing up my quads and glutes ( they are very weak ). The
physio told me to feel my strong leg qauds and glutes tense them and then
transfer it over to the other leg. Your body sends signals that can match the
other side of your body. Its quite relaxing to do!!
Last exercise was to sit with feet in front of you and to
move your bum forward keeping your feet still. This helps to bend your knee.
Most importantly is to get rid of the swelling so meds need taking as advised and ice!!! I’ve been
told to have a bag of ice cubes as it moulds around the knee and 10 mins on 10
mins off x3 so you need about 50mins to do this. This really works and the
swelling on my knee has gone down so much!
I have suffered a lot from this injury and i want to share
my experience. If you’re waiting for your op get them leg muscles strong!! It
will really help with recovery. I will keep posting my experiences and any info
that might be useful. There is so much do’s and don’ts and sometimes its
overwhelming knowing what’s right and what’s wrong to do.
Stay strong
Dani x
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