Fast forward to this morning.. the swelling is WAY down, but their is excruciating pain down the front of my shin like I somehow broke my tib and fib overnight... So good in one sense, but very bad for my overall comfort level. The normatech pushes so hard on your leg that it actually bruised the hell out of my shin overnight and it now feels as if someone is constantly kicking me in the shin, not so sweet. The solution to that is to just delete the normatech from my regular routine and hope the pain goes away.
I went in to have my follow up appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Robert Burks, this afternoon. After having an x-ray taken to see how everything is healing the doctor came in to talk to my trainer and I about how it went. Apparently the surgery was a huge success and everything came together perfectly, my other ligaments are strong and my meniscus is 100% intact. Then he proposed an idea to me which could greatly help my recovery, Prolotherapy. It is a new technique which has not been highly used, in fact, I am Dr. Burks first patient for the new therapy. Here is a short explanation:
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and autologous conditioned plasma (ACP), use a patient's own blood to heal injured tissue by injecting the blood directly into the site of the injury. The principle centers on the fact that blood naturally rushes to an injury in order to heal it. The PRP process begins by drawing a small amount of blood from the patient, and then processing the blood in a high-speed centrifuge in order to separate out red-blood cells from platelets. Since the platelets release proteins and have exceptional healing qualities, the physician then injects about a teaspoon or so of the platelet-rich substance into the patient's damaged area in order to "kick-start" the body's own healing process. Doctors for major sports teams have been experimenting with ACP and PRP as an alternative to surgery to expedite the healing of injuries such as torn ligaments and tendonitis.
NFL players underwent the procedure before last year's Super Bowl and Tiger Woods underwent the procedure while recovering from knee surgery. All athletes who have used the therapy have reported a large decrease in pain and increase in stability.
Besides the fact that I am lucky enough to have been chosen by Dr. Burks to use this therapy, I will now also have his own "special interest" in my knee. Since I am the first person he has ever done the injections on he is very interested in the results. I am very lucky to be chosen for this and I am very thankful to Dr. Burks for his effort to get me back on snow stronger than ever. I will be having 4-6 more of these injections once a week, I really hope it is as good as it sounds.
After the team finished my round of injections I crutched down the hallway to the physical therapy office at the Utah Orthopedic Center. I will still be doing the core of my exercises and treatments in the U of U Athletic training room but once a week I will meet with a licensed physio to make sure I am staying on track. We started off by taking measurements of both my knee and my range of motion. I am actually slightly ahead of schedule, I am comfortably able to completely straighten and bend up to 95 degrees without the help of my hands. We went through many exercises which I actually flew through with ease. This was a real surprise to me because I really have been keeping it in my brace and have been told not to move it at all. I am able to flex my quad, see the muscle (its actually pretty big) and then do a straight leg raise with full control both on the way up and slowly down. I am really eager to start getting stronger now and regaining full range of motion. I am allowed to do my exercises at home also to my hearts content, as long as it does not start to hurt. All in all, today was by far the most exciting and rewarding day of my recovery to date. Stay tuned, its getting exciting!
Tomorrow I am going back to the classroom for a psychology exam so I have to take off and hit the books!
As always, take care!
Ryan
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