Welcome to the club, Don! No one really asked to join but these guys are all here for you anyway. This is such a tough thing to go through. I'm so sorry.Hello everybody. New to this board. Had a quad complete rupture about 12 weeks ago. Repair done right away (next day) and rehab has been good but slow.
Visited the Ortho yesterday and was notified the repair was not done right. There is a gap between the quad and the knee which prohibits the lower leg from lifting, like the good leg.
The remedy is another surgery to fix. Very depressing to learn that. Getting a MRI and will look at other opinions. Rehab for another 12 weeks to get to where I am at now is awful.
Can I ask what kind of gap is in question? Do you know the method they used for the reattachment? Would love to hear an update about alternatives...I can imagine grafted tendon being an easier alternative that doesn't require drilling into the patella, etc. If you need to start another recovery process, I hope you keep in mind that it isn't like starting over! We ebb and flow in and out of stages of feeling healed, and the first part to get through is the mental portion of recovery. You've done it before (for 12 weeks!!!) and you can do it again.
Another positive is that all orthos will tell you that the quads tendon repair recovery is the toughest beast...any other surgery after that is jelly beans.
Frank, I appreciate the encouragement and glad to hear you are back to some more serious movement! It's all uphill from here.
I did revisit my ortho after getting a CT scan of the patella.... two big holes that the doc says we should graft bone into and remove the sutures. It looks like my bad reaction to the suture material caused a "sawing back-and-forth" and the sutures basically rubbed out a bigger space for themselves. Ouch. Since it's been apparently dormant for a while and I'm not necessarily feeling pain, I'm going to wait another 6 months before deciding to go back in for the surgery. This would be an easier one, since the tendon looks fully healed (yay!) and bone is a much easier fix than everything else. I'm just glad the doctor didn't tell me I need a titanium kneecap or something... I think I'm still a bit young for that!
Cheers to everyone and happy recovery.