Happened to me last year at 48. Had surgery in November and haven't run yet ... but I haven't really been interested in doing so. Instead I've been riding 15-20 hours per week. I did zero rehab because it sounds boring. I just rode my bike a bunch and walked the dog. No lingering issues.

Also happened to a friend and he had surgery about 5 weeks ago. He's already back running.

You should be able to rehab it. Not sure why that would be a problem. ACL surgery is incredibly common, so is MCL. It takes awhile though because the graft needs to heal and you need to build the strength back up to support the ACL until it is healed. If you’re health this shouldn’t be too bad.

Depends on how long theyve been detached and how well the surgery goes. Some people can run after a few weeks, others will have issues for a lot longer. You'd have to listen to the doctor and PT to gauge your situation

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Strava

Wall Sits

Part (most) of me hopes this is the case: that I just ride my bikes a lot and swim a bit from now on. My only injuries ever were from running.

I honestly think it was the walking (2-3x per day) that did the most good for me. My surgery was on a Friday and I was walking down the street by Sunday morning - very gingerly though. By the end of the first week I was up to 4-5 miles a day and by 2 weeks was getting close to 7 most days. I kept the riding to about 5-10 hrs a week until around late January.

Tore my ACL, PCL and MCL (car impact). I was supposed to be doing Ironman 5 weeks later but managed to defer my entry to another one, 10 months later. The surgeon was initially sceptical about the chances of me being ready to run the Ironman I had deferred to, (he thought rehab would take longer than 10 months) but after the surgery and good progress with rehab he gave me the green light to begin run training and I did that Ironman. And 15 months after surgery I did Ultraman (incl double marathon). So I wouldn’t write off your chances of running, but definitely get some good advice on treatment options, make friends with a good Physio, and get yourself a gym membership if you haven’t got one already.

In general I would say no problem as running without sport involves little lateral moves, pivots, plants, jumping...so it is pretty easy to come back with good rehab to previous levels.

The fact that you tore it without an acute event would be a bit of concern or at least understanding...perhaps torn at earlier age with sport? The ligaments (or future tendons;) will not be your rate limiter, it will be the articular surfaces of the joint (cartilage, menisci...). No acute trauma may be a good thing or it may be bad if you been active on a compromised knee for years.

Good luck and do some pre-hab if you have the time and tolerance, it will make recovery substantially faster.

I don't know how you could tear your MCL/ACL without some major event so maybe that changes the answer? I.e., if it was some abnormal degenerative issue maybe it will happen again. My answer is for normal people.

I'm 51 and tore my ACL in a ski crash two years ago. I did a full race season on it torn. This can cause damage to your knee but has no impact on the ability to repair it. After the season I had it repaired. I was back on the bike in 5 days, raced a TT in 3 weeks, basically normal in 5 weeks. However, the graft takes a long time to strengthen -- a year or more -- so even though you *feel* 100%, for a long time you can't do anything that could cause major stress on the ACL such as field sports (soccer, football etc) or you might re-tear. I think running on flat pavement is probably fine but there is risk because if you take a wrong step and twist your ankle, you could tear the graft. I chose not to run for a while. I definitely would not do any trail running for at least 9 months and maybe a year. Fast forward to this past winter I skied totally normally without thinking about it and I now can do anything I did before including play soccer, run etc. It's 100% as far as I can tell. A few weeks ago I had a moment where I was trying to remember which knee it was and having trouble.

This isn’t correct. It doesn’t take a year to be fine with sports. Normal return to full sports is 6-9 months. I was cleared at 6 Months for a PCL injury which takes significantly longer to heal and this was after 15 years of having a torn PCL.

https://kneesurgerysydney.com.au/acl-recovery/

No disrespect, but it is more correct than your experience (out of context to OP) and reference (again not in context to OP).

Find a good team to work with that understands the continuum, work the program, take your time, and listen to the folks that oversee your rehab and not one-offs that did it 6 months.

Cheers!

There are many papers on this topic and many find not full strength until after 12 months and up to 24 months. It's a risk game. You can go back to sports before that but sports that stress the graft are a bit risky.

Here's one: https://www.patchworkandpebbles.com/acl-surgery-part-4/


Here's another: https://www.researchgate.net/...trength_fig1_5286551

This one is the most thorough: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC4142140/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC5226931/

This is a pretty good one too. It sounds like the reoccurrence within 2 years is 25-30 percentish. So I can see the reason for the debate. I don’t think its going to get switched to 2 years anytime soon though, I was trying to find the actual incidence rate for ACL under 25 but that’s a bit harder it seems to find.

2 years for half of the athletes means they would be done playing because they’d be out of high school or college. A 75 percent chance it won’t tear again in 2 years is pretty good. I don’t think many doctors are going to convice the parents or kids on that timeline.

My PCL tore a second time, it took 5 years, but we found out I had an undiagnosed LCL injury too.

I tore my other ACL in 1983 (basketball). It was a long 9-12 month recovery (which really hasn't changed since then). And you're right, when repaired and rehab'd, one can do anything (marathons, triathlons, all sports really).

The challenge is the injury wasn't from a catalytic event (that I can remember - and I definitely remember tearing my other ACL when I was 18!). Perhaps you are correct and it's degenerative. In that case, I'll miss running a bit but will move on to cycling-specific racing (if you can call over-50 cycling racing).

I have a few issues that cause fraying and excessive scarring of my AC. Summer 2020, I fell while portaging in the boundary waters, and tore my MCL (grade 2). What I didn't realize was, I also finally severed my acl as well.

I just did therapy for the MCL and called it a day (it's still partially torn and the ACL is still completely dust in the wind). I should add, I also have no lateral meniscus, and grade 4 (full thickness, subchondral bone exposed) osteoarthritis over the entirety of both my lateral femoral condyle and tib plateau.

I suffered no decrease in my running performance from the acl and mcl injuries. (But, like I said, I also had a very complex knee, so am used to compensating)

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