PCL injury

andyd12

Hi guys,
Bitta of a long story here goes,
2009,I hurt knee 3yrs ago playing gaa, major swelling and pain. Had an MRI, nothing obvious showed up so consultant wanted to do an arthroscopy as the knee was very unstable and had massive play in the PCL.
Had scope, ACL intact, PCL intact as far as he could see. Some cartillage was removed which was damaged. Consultant said knee should strengthen with time and physio which I did.

2010, didnt play ball at all as i felt knee wasnt right but continued rehab etc

2011, returned to football, all fine for 3-4months then boom. Went over on the knee again. No swelling like first time. I left it then for 6months+ due to work etc, didnt play any football on it

2012, decided to get it looked at again by different consultant. Did MRI, no obvious signs again, consultant wanted an arthroscopy. ACL intact, PCL intact. Consultant said he couldnt see any tear but thought PCL was torn but couldnt see it, due to it being in an awkward positon. He reckoned with the play and drawer symptoms in the knee, it was certainly torn.

So, he then referred me to another consultant in SSC, who had more experience/knowledge on PCL injuries.
He examined me using the usual procedure, he categorised the injury as a stage 3 PCL tearbeing the most severe. The play in the knee has been constant over the 3yrs anytime physio/consultant/doctor examined it.
So he sat me down and explained to me that a PCL operation is massive and risky operation due to potential nerve damage and all the other risks associated with any procedure. Long period in hospital and on crutches, extensive rehab etc
I am in work and the injury doesnt effect me day to day, I can go to the gym etc no problems, but knee is not good when pushed hard side to side movements etc.
So all things considered the consultant advised to give up contact sports as the op. might not be worth it in the long run! I accepted this agreeing he is right on balance. He was very sound about it and couldnt fault him overall, it was in the back of my mind going in anyway after reading up on the net about PCL injuries.
Im only 25yrs old, was pushing for inter county panel 3yrs ago and now I will prob never play again which is heart breaking.

So long story short, has anyone ever had a PCL injury or even a PCL operation? What are peoples opinion on PCL operations

Hanley

Say you did get the op, it went 100% perfect, and you're recovery and rehab was great. Add in the time it would take to get back to full fitness, and much needed match experience. Add it all together. Add in 25. Do you think at whatevr that age is, your priorities will be the same or will have changed?

Reckon there's any part of you thats using the injury as an excuse for not getting your shot?

Basically you need to ask yourself whether or not it's "worth it" to you on balance. It's not for anyone else to decide. Good luck with whatever you do tho.

I've been in the exact same boat and it f*cking sucks so hard.

andyd12

I dont use the injury as an excuse at all. I dont go round saying i coulda been this and that blaming it on a knee injury.I got injured and basically havent played since.
Tbh I prob dont have the commitment to play at intercounty level anyway, its nearing pro now ha.
Its frustrating to go from a good club player to nothing, I cant even play with our 2nd team now. And then explaining to people situation is worst!

Just looking to see if anyone is in similar situation and what did they do?

UL_heart_throb

First off, I've never torn my PCL (or ACL) nor had surgery on my knee. So apologies for intruding on your thread.

So three years ago you tore your PCL. You had a positive posterior drawer test but there was no proof of the tear on the MRI or via arthroscopy. You did extensive physio and strengthening work but the laxity in the ligament never went away. You returned to football about a year later and then your knee 'gave out' during a match. You took another year off then went back to another surgeon who gave you the same diagnosis as the first but referred you to your man in santry.

The expert in santry couldn't see a tear on the MRI or in the scope but based on clinical and history evaluation diagnosed with Grade III PCL tear. I think there are 4 grades of PCL tear so this is pretty bad.

Anyway, sorry for summarising but if all that is true this is my take on it.

Forget about inter-county football. It's a misnomer. You will never play inter-county football regardless of surgery. Obviously I have nothing to base this on, for all I know you could be the Diego Maradonna of Gaelic football but within the laws of probability, someone who hasn't played properly for 3 years and has a knee instability who wasn't already at that level pre-injury, won't get to that level. Or if you do you'll only exacerbate the injury.

What is more relevant is how important playing football is for your general well being. If you've already gone off it for most of the last 3 years but are still trying to get back into it, it must have been important. My advice would be to take up something that doesn't have that shifting on one left, lateral movement, knee stress. So no soccer, Gaa, rugby.

With regard to the risks of the surgery. The surgeon is legally obliged to tell you all the potential risks, even if only 1 in 100 develop that complication. Surgeons have so many customers these days they don't need to sell the surgery, they actually try and dissuade people from doing them (my opinion only of course).

Apparently the PCL is a funny ligament in that a lot of people get by with chronic injury with it because other ligaments and structures can compensate, especially for activities of daily living. That is to say, you can probably get on fine with your non-sporting life without your knee giving you too much hassle. Although there is a question as to whether living with a PCL which is torn, and has had a funny way of healing itself, will cause things like arthritis in the future. Maybe that's something you can ask the orthopod if you see him, what are the long term risk of walking around with a bandy PCL.

Anyway, it just seems to be like even if you get the surgery, if you go back to playing GAA you could go and tear it again. Or, you'll be so conscious of not moving laterally too explosively you'll be a ****e player.

TBH if I could go to the gym, play golf, work, play with the kids and not be worried about my knee giving out I'd be content. If I was told there would be no long term bad effects of not getting the surgery, I wouldnt bother either.

If any of the above isn't true, and I felt like any minute I was going to fall over I'd get the surgery.

this ignores the cost and insurance and all that.

andyd12

Thanks for the input man, exactly sums up the whole ordeal and finally makes my mind up that contact sports are a thing of the past for me now.

Just on the long-term effects of having a torn PCL, I said this to the consultant in Santry would I have problems with arthritis etc in years to come. He said its hard to say if problems like these would arise but reckoned surgery wouldnt out-weigh this risk.

blah88

I tore my PCL 3 years ago aswell, playing rugby. Was mis-diagnosed, told to go back playing and it gave out on me as soon as I tried to accelerate in a match. I went back to the physio and got it diagnosed correctly and put on a rehab program. It was my first major injury and I neglected the rehab for a long time, kinda sulked and felt sorry for myself for a few months.

I eventually just started doing it when I realised it wasn't going to get better by sitting around. It's been fine playing sports for the last 2.5 years. It just feels different than it did before. I click my knee hundreds of times a day and find that it bothers me sitting down without resting it up on something.It came back to being stronger than my other leg again though. I'v also heard that these injuries are 'degenarative' over time. Not looking forward to getting arthritis in it but I sense it's inevitable. I can't really remember now but I think mine was only a grade 2 tear, with grade 3 being the worst.

There seems to be a dearth of information out there about treating them alright. Eric Cressey has a bit to say about them here if it helps. http://www.ericcressey.com/tag/pcl

P.S. I never got around to finishing my PCL rehab and the physio I'd been attending is no longer with the club. Just wondering if you have any advanced rehab exercises to do once your knee is back to say, 90% of it's former self. If ya could send them on via PM that would be great. There's very little out there on the web.

Ivan.Drago

Just to chime in, I’m currently awaiting ACL reconstruction after completely tearing it playing soccer in April. At 26 years old I didn’t even consider not getting the surgery, and this is just for someone who plays Sunday league football. I’ve been informed that if the surgery and rehab go well I could be pretty close to 100% fitness by around 6 months post surgery (I’ll be aiming for quicker). If the other option is to never play sports or eliminating any kind of lateral movement from training, personally I’d go surgery 100% of the time.

joe123

currently recovering from ACL injury. Completely tore my ACL in march 2011 had surgery in June 2011.

Back playing now in training, knee still feels a bit niggily but part of that is in my head plus my I'm not doing enough gym wise since I started my job which runs 11 hour shifts.

Long story short tho being out of football was awful, even now missing matches is awful but I'm happy to be back playing in training at least.

Maybe ACL is different but my surgey went smoothly. Took graft out of my hamstring and it's now my new ACL.

blah88

ACL injuries are a different kettle of fish altogether. The anterior ligament is much more important than the posterior, but injuries to it are way more common and operations on them are simpler and generally more successful. Tom Brady, Felipe Contepomi and more recently GSP have all come back to the top level after ACL surgery.

I don't think there's any examples of well known athletes who came back from a grade 3 PCL injury, sadly. I know Reggie Bush had a grade 2 injury which was treated with non-operative rehab.

andyd12

Ivan.Drago wrote: »

Just to chime in, I’m currently awaiting ACL reconstruction after completely tearing it playing soccer in April. At 26 years old I didn’t even consider not getting the surgery, and this is just for someone who plays Sunday league football. I’ve been informed that if the surgery and rehab go well I could be pretty close to 100% fitness by around 6 months post surgery (I’ll be aiming for quicker). If the other option is to never play sports or eliminating any kind of lateral movement from training, personally I’d go surgery 100% of the time.

No offence man but ACL and PCL are completely different procedures. Most surgeons do ACL recon. in their sleep. From the 4 surgeons I have talked to none of them seemed to keen or massively well up on PCL recon.

andyd12

blah88 wrote: »

I tore my PCL 3 years ago aswell, playing rugby. Was mis-diagnosed, told to go back playing and it gave out on me as soon as I tried to accelerate in a match. I went back to the physio and got it diagnosed correctly and put on a rehab program. It was my first major injury and I neglected the rehab for a long time, kinda sulked and felt sorry for myself for a few months.

I eventually just started doing it when I realised it wasn't going to get better by sitting around. It's been fine playing sports for the last 2.5 years. It just feels different than it did before. I click my knee hundreds of times a day and find that it bothers me sitting down without resting it up on something.It came back to being stronger than my other leg again though. I'v also heard that these injuries are 'degenarative' over time. Not looking forward to getting arthritis in it but I sense it's inevitable. I can't really remember now but I think mine was only a grade 2 tear, with grade 3 being the worst.

There seems to be a dearth of information out there about treating them alright. Eric Cressey has a bit to say about them here if it helps. http://www.ericcressey.com/tag/pcl

P.S. I never got around to finishing my PCL rehab and the physio I'd been attending is no longer with the club. Just wondering if you have any advanced rehab exercises to do once your knee is back to say, 90% of it's former self. If ya could send them on via PM that would be great. There's very little out there on the web.

Thanks for the link mate, nice bit of info their but overall their is very little on the net about PCL injuries

Xyzforsure

andyd12 wrote: »

Thanks for the link mate, nice bit of info their but overall their is very little on the net about PCL injuries

Did you get the op done ?

andyd12

Xyzforsure wrote: »

Did you get the op done ?

No never had an op done. The general consensus was that it wasn't worth the hassle, money etc etc.
I haven't played any contact sports like football rugby etc competitively sInce. And never will be able to. My knee basically is the exact same, massive laxity in the ligament when drawer test is done, hasn't tightened one bit.
But I get by without it, can run, swim, snowboard even on it (skiing would be a big nono). No instablity only when tired after excerising it. Do most things but cant play contact sports or horseplay on it too much, always in my head too.

But I have coped better than I thought I would, do lots of exercises is all I can say around knee, hip and thigh areaðŸ‘