Day 260 is 8.5 months post op. I had a fun Halloween weekend/day. Saturday was an 80s dance party. I managed to stand around and socialize, plus dance a little (I LOVE dancing but tried to limit it to upper body movement mostly, haha). I called it a night at 10pm. I had some knee pain the next day, but I managed to go for a 2 mile SLOW hike on flat trails later in the afternoon and had to use two hiking poles. It was one of our last sunny warmish days and I had to be outside. Last night on Halloween, I visited 3 open houses and walked around on sidewalks, probably about a mile total? I am MUCH more sore today than after the Saturday night "dancing." Why did that leave me more sore? I was out 3 hours versus 2.5 hours the other night. Sometimes it feels like there is no consistent pattern. I do have a very prominent limp today and am walking very slowly wishing I could get my crutch. This time the pain is not solely at the harvest site but over my numb patch to the right of my incision. Knee is wrapped in an Ace bandage for comfort too. Tried my TENS unit midday and it did not help with pain. Anyway, I read lots of journal articles on BPTB (bone - patellar tendon - bone) autograft, long term follow ups, tendonitis issues, 40+ years of age patients, etc. basically to see what kind of future this may hold for me. Lots of papers mention "knee scores" to gauge the knee's function. I don't have a good way to gauge my progress right now (I say my biggest accomplishment in 5 months is getting out of a chair with two feet normally), so maybe if I record various knee scores at intervals I can see progress. Knowing my own knee score numbers I can understand these journal articles better too. The Lysholm Knee Score was developed in 1982 and used to evaluate outcomes in knee ligament surgeries. My Lysholm Knee Score is 32 out of 100 (I technically made this on Monday, but it's still the same for months on end). The scary part is in most of the articles, there is always one or two stragglers, people still quite abnormal years out from surgery. In one paper at 9 to 12 year follow ups, I read there is a couple people still rating 35-44 in the Lysholm Knee Score. That would be just devastating at 9+ years post op! That's like a smidge better than I am now. What will be good to me? The Tenger Activity Level is another scoring system to standardize activity pre- and post-ligament surgery and often compliments the Lysholm Knee Score. Before my injury, I was a Level 6: Recreational Sports - (many sports listed ) about 5x a week. That was me. I did do some ski mountaineer (skimo) racing, but really as a recreational person not a honed elite skier or anything, so I didn't go for the next level up. Currently at day 260, I am a Level 2: Work - light labor, walking on uneven ground possible, but impossible to backpack or hike. I'd say that is me, and some days I am Level 1: sedentary. I would like to reach Level 6 again, but if Level 5 is all I can get then that would be better than not ever being active. We will see! International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) Subjective Knee Evaluation Form is another scoring system to detect improvement or deterioration in symptoms, function, and sports activities due to knee impairment from ligament injury or surgery. Highest level is 100.
My IKDC score is a 24. This handy PDF I found tallies up the score for you. Before I even completed the Lysholm or IKDC knee tests, I would tell people I'm 35% of normal as a way to quantify things. So I guess I wasn't too far off considering the two knee scores (24 and 32).
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AuthorA 45 year old active female who tore her ACL in January 2017 (at the age of 40). Reconstructive surgery in February 2017 with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Archives
November 2022
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