MCL Injury

To those of you that have had MCL injuries, what was your recovery like? Took a bad fall today while snowboarding and I’m going into the orthopedic office tomorrow to get an accurate diagnosis. My primary physician said my knee has a lot of play, and it hurts like hell if I try lifting it only using my leg muscles. I have to use my hands to move it otherwise it feels like the bottom portion of my leg is going to rip off.

 

Bummer bro!
You are probably done for the season. Looking at 8 to 12 weeks.... could be more pending on exact diagnoses. Hope it goes well. I had my knee scoped many years ago and it was a good 12 to 16 weeks and longer before able to run and jump.

 

If it’s really an isolated MCL injury, you probably won’t need surgery and might be back up and running an 3-6 weeks with some PT. That said, since you are in so much pain, I suspect they’ll want an MRI to see if any other ligaments are affected and to see the extent of damage to the MCL.

Good luck!

 

Yeah that sucks! Had reconstructive myself from a wake boarding injury. Is it fully torn or do you just need to be scoped? If they’re going to open your knee up then I’d say 3 months. I had to have full acl replacement along with repairs to meniscus. I was off work for 3 months and a year before I had the confidence to wake board like I was prior to the injury. I’ve been left with the tell tale knee zipper. Good luck with your surgery and recovery.

 

Back in 1982 in the Marine Corps I sustained a bad knee injury that ended my Military career at MCAGCC 29 Palms . I ended hyper extending my r/knee during a Military exercise and ended up tearing the ACL , PCL and MCL . After three surgeries and 33 years later and knee replacement I'm still in pain


Any ligament tear you get when you're young and even though you work your a** off in PT you're going to end up with a knee replacement and severe arthritis when you get older

 

Took me 8 weeks for normal activity and 12 weeks for most of the pain to subside. About 8 months to have any confidence in it though. Good luck, don't push it. I tried to man up and that didn't last long!

 

That sucks, but you're going to unnecessarily scare the OP. A lot of ligamentous knee injuries can be managed without any surgery at all. Many people have pain free and stable knees with unrepaired ACL tears. OP needs to get evaluated before he goes down a rabbit hole of worst case scenarios.

 

If surgery is needed, expect to not be hitting the mountain again this season unfortunately. If not, you might be able to get the last few weeks in. It’s best to make sure your knee fully heals up otherwise you’re asking for problems in the future.

 

Totally agree.

False to say any ligamentous injury will result in OA and total knee replacement in all cases.

 

Thanks to everyone for the replies! I’ve never done this whole medical process thing as I’ve never been injured, but the orthopedic doctor said it’ll be 1-2 weeks for insurance to approve the MRI, and then they’ll go from there. Told me we would most likely be dealing with my MCL as all the pain is localized there, and maybe a miniscus injury. Will try aggressive physical therapy as MCL injuries don’t commonly require surgery. He didn’t play around too much with my knee as the pain was increasing with being out of the brace and him pushing and moving it around. Stated I could start extorting weight on it while wearing my knee brace, and that I have to have complete flexibility before I could have surgery if it comes to that.

 

Just don't rush the recovery. I blew my MCL a couple years back training jiu jitsu. It felt good about 8 weeks later and I went skiing. That was a bad idea. Give it plenty of time to heal, even after it feels good. Be smarter than I was and don't rush it.