Ice Ice Baby

Ice is my saviour. When I was staying at my parents and getting hyperbaric every day, I could noticably see the swelling reduce pretty much every day so I didn't really bother with ice much. Since moving back to my flat I hit a bit of a plateau in improvement - my flexion was getting better, but more slowly.

Obviously, starting back to work and generally being a lot more active will have contributed to this, so it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause but all I know is by the end of the day, my knee was pressurised with fluid and I was about 10 degrees less flexible than the morning. After a few hours of icing and lying on the couch, I could get back to the previous highpoint. I bought various icepacks and my boss (who tore his ACL last year) lent me a cryocuff. I've got a Vulkan gel ice pack, which is nearly useless, but came with a great velcro/mesh icepack holder, which my FirstIce icepack conveniently fits into. This stuff is AMAZING!

It's not cheap (£11) but it works really well. Compounds in the liquid make the water freeze like snow, so the ice pack is cold, but doesn't burn like solid ice and conforms well to your knee. It lasts a good hour and takes about 2 to freeze.

The cryo cuff is also good, but a lot more expensive. It's nice that you can pump it up to give you pressure and cold but it's a bit more fiddly.To be honest, you can't go wrong with a bag of Tesco Value peas, until you get a hole in the bag and melting pea-juice drips all over the place.

Training and Rehab

I've been doing plenty chin-ups and some core work on the pull-up bar. Actually tried a 1-arm chin up the other day and was closer than I've ever been. Slight upward progress from a 90 degree lock! I'm going to put in some steady work into this and see if I can bust out some 1-arm action before I get back to climbing!

I've also been fingerboarding, but not as much as I'd like. Was round at a mates at a BBQ the other day and was mucking around on the bouldering wall in the garage - somehow I can still bear-down on some pretty small holds. All encouraging!

Rehab progress is good, but I'm still at a stage where I can't push too hard. My walking is getting much better. The brace is what causes most of my limp now - when it's on right I can walk almost normally!

After a 3 hour wait, I saw my surgeon for the 7 week check-up. He seemed surprised by my progress and especially the lack of swelling. Another nod towards the unsung wonders of hyperbaric oxygen treatment! Had an X-Ray which showed the crews to all be in place and nothing to worry about. Clean bill of health really!

Today my swelling seems great. I just added a new exercise - rather than doing static one-leg mini-squats on a step, I'm actually just walking up stairs! I still need support form the handrail on the way down but going up feels great! I hit 115° flexion today and it feels like the next 20 might come quite easily, but who knows.

Finally, Andy Murray is through to the Semi's!!! Can't wait for the match against Nadal.

A Breakthrough, or Breaking Point?

Lot's of things to write about since the last post. World Cup has started, Queens has started and finished and Murray went out...booo! Wimbledon next. I'm catching up on all the sports viewing that I've missed out on over the last 5 years. Back to work too, albeit from home until I'm walking again.

About ten days ago I was doing my range-of-motion stretches on my knee to get it bending more. I put my brace to checking the angle and there was a big release of pressure from the area around my PLC graft at the outside of my knee. The angle went from 75° to 85° and to be honest, I really crapped it. At the same time I started to feel a bit ill. I checked the area where the graft is and it felt much squidgier than before; I managed to convince myself that I'd torn the graft by pushing the ROM too far. Shit!!!

Next day I phoned the physio who thought I should come in to get it checked, depsite the fact I was probably being a total hypochondriac. I was, it was fine; all I'd done was push through some adhesion between the graft and something. So, it really was a breakthrough and not breaking point!

Over the next few days my ROM steadily increased at about the same rate as my muscle deacrease. I'm trying hard to do all the physio but my quads, calves and glutes are shrinking rapidly.


And some notes from the next few days:


Day 33. Hit 84*! More Weight bearing, no problems.

Day 36. First day back in the office. Knee bent too long and not propped up. Got home, bit swolen. Lot's of ice. not much improvement in bending, 85* ish but gets there pretty easily. Almost full weight bearing, hopefully off the crutches on wednesday.

Day 38. Physio. Allowed to progress to full weight bearing, brace unlocked to 90*. Bit of pain under kneecap doing quad mini-squats. Chuffed :-)

Some motorbike racers have been using hyperbaric oxygen therapy:

http://www.bikesportnews.com/news-detail.cfm?newstitle=ELLISONS%20START%20HEAL%20THE%20RIDER%20FOUNDATION&newsid=5827

The Crux (Day 13 to day 25)

I had my second Physio appointment yesterday and he was happy with the progress. Most of the swelling is now gone, as are my hamstring and calf muscles... It's quite amazing how quick muscles wither away when you're not allowed to use them.

Slighty puffy right knee and no calf muscle.

I've been working hard on my quad contractions, doing 4 sets or 10 contractions, 3 to 5 times a day and really gunning for it. My quads are shrinking, but much more slowly than the unused muscles. The physio was happy enough with my quad control than I'm now allowed partial weight bearing with the brace unlocked to 40°. So, all the hard work, squeezing the hell out of my quads has payed off :-)

I've also been working on my flexion, steadily going from 30°, through 35°, 40° up to 55° by the physio appointment. He felt my patella was a bit tight (it's got to be said, I've been slacking on the patella mobilisations) so he gave me about 10 minutes of massage and tissue stretching. After that I managed to get it to 75°, which is encouraging since my target for day 28 was only 60°. I'm not in any pain at all, any time of the day. Sometimes it stiffens up a little and the first few ROM exercises don't get very far, but it slowly returns. When I get to the end point it feels like pressure under the kneecap and around the posterolateral corner are preventing further flexion. I'm sure it'll all come in time.

In 2 weeks my brace will be unlocked to 60°  and I should be allowed to start walking without the crutches and I can sleep with the brace off, which will be amazing - these braces are damn uncomfortable in bed!!!

In addition to all the physio I'm already doing, I'm now allowed to do standing heel raises to work my calves a bit and to get more out of my knee flexion ROM I'm now doing them lying on my back with my

To try and minimize the effects of sitting on a couch most of the day, I've been out doing some upper-body work. I'm hoping to maintain some climbing fitness so that it's less of a mountain to climb when I'm allowed back on the rock. So far I've just been doing pull-ups, fingerboard hangs and core work on a bar my old man put up in the old stables. I'll ramp it up a bit once I'm back in the flat in Glasgow and am off the crutches.

Does the crutch count as aid?

I think that's the worst part of the rehab process done, the crux of it; now I can actually start working towards recovery and seeing the progress. It's still a long way to go, but I can feel the shift of momentum.

A nice shot of the main scar to finish: