You’re in the heat of the moment, pushing your body to the max, and you land hard, pivoting at the same time. That’s when you hear a popping noise, feel your knee go out from under you, and start to suffer from severe pain. You’ve experienced an injury to your ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), a key part of your knee joint.
ACL injuries can also occur due to trauma, as in an accident. You might not even notice symptoms right away. However, if you’ve experienced an ACL injury, for whatever reason, the next question is what needs to be done to protect the long-term stability of your knee joint. You don’t want one of your knees to be “bad,” and prone to reinjury, for years to come!
At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine of Tomball, Kingwood, and The Woodlands, Texas, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and his team have the expertise in handling ACL injuries that you want to rely on, especially if you have a sports career that hangs in the balance.
Your ACL is one of the ligaments that holds your knee joint together. Some motions, especially sharp changes in motion or jarring landings, can cause your ACL to strain or even tear completely into two separate pieces. If this happens, the integrity of your whole knee joint can be compromised.
You also have other ligaments in your knee that can suffer injuries, but due to your knee joint’s structure, the ACL is the most commonly injured. ACL injuries are some of the sports injuries that Dr. Blackwell treats most frequently!
Without the right approach to healing, you won’t be able to trust the affected knee. And, you should know that ACL injuries don’t heal on their own. You need medical evaluation and intervention to recover from an ACL injury.
The treatment for your ACL injury depends on the severity of the strain or tear. It also depends on you — and how much stress you plan to put on the affected knee joint in future.
For people who plan on moderate activity going forward, conservative treatment options like icing therapy, medication management for pain and inflammation, and splinting or bracing are probably sufficient after an ACL injury, especially if it wasn’t too severe.
However, if you want to get back to your sport, Dr. Blackwell recommends that you plan on surgical ACL repair and reconstruction. This gives your knee joint back its full strength and integrity, reducing your risk of re-injury once you get back in the ring, arena, or field.
For expert treatment and support with ACL injuries of all types and degrees of severity, get in touch with Dr. Blackwell at the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine online or over the phone today.
