cewe,

Send Alf a PM. He is an orthopaedic surgeon and is probably the most experienced AR person in that area.

Ann,

I'm glad your knee is doing better. Those patella problems can hurt like the devil (as you know).

JCN

Sounds like a radical correction, my guess is it will take a year to be really healed. Maybe even longer. I damaged a large tendon attached to my patella once, it took SEVERAL years to ease the pain from the injury.

Curt, as you know, you can hunt Mountain Zebra with us. You don't need to walk, we carry you...

www.kapstadt.de/lemberg
Hunting one hour from Cape Town

Sent you a PM.....a "gentle" plains game hunt may be in order.....

Let's see. I had a "Modified Andrews" procedure where they split the patella tendon into thirds and took the center portion up through a tunnel they bored in the top of my tibia and stapled it to the bottom of my femur to replace a blown ACL. I had the lateral colateral ligament replaced with a cadaver's Achilles tendon. I had both the anterior and posterior meniscous (sp)removed and a surgical repair of the PCL that was reinforced with a strip of Gortex. All in my left knee.

It only took about four years to recover from those.

cewe,

Did a Google search. There is a wonderful web site that explains the surgery (unncessary for you as an MD), but it explains that pt must be able to tolerate the rehab. It outlines their rehab protocol. The following is copied from the web site:

Rehabilitation Protocol

General Considerations:

Partial weight bearing for four weeks
10-20% toe-touch for 1-2 weeks, progress as tolerated to 50% for remaining 2 weeks
Hinged Rehab brace w/o range of motion restriction for 4 weeks
Avoidance of all valgus stress for 4-6 weeks
No resisted leg extension machines at any point
Manual mobilization of soft tissue for reduction of fibrosis
No high impact activities for 12-14 weeks
MD follow-up at Day 1, Day 8-10, 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year
Week 1
Day 1 visit for post-op dressing change and exercise review
Ice and elevation with ankle pumps regularly throughout day
Isometric quad, hamstring, and glutal sets
Straight leg raises into flexion and extension
Weeks 2-4
Visit at 8-10 days for suture removal
Hip exercises, isometrics, active-assisted range of motion exercises
Controlled partial weight bearing
Weeks 4-6
Progress to full weight bearing and discontinue use of brace
Begin functional exercises (i.e. kneebends, lunges, step ups)
Stationary cycle, etc., as tolerated
Weeks 6-8
Increase intensity of functional exercises
Cautiously add lateral training exercise
Range of motion should be 80%, no evidence of limp
Weeks 8-12
Low impact activities until 12 weeks

Low impact includes walking. Hunting in Namibia is walking and lots of it. I think you'd be OK. If you want a mountain zebra and don't want to go to the mountain, try La Rochelle in northern Namibia. I took a very nice one there, and the land is very flat. They can handle that species because of the very rocky terrain which keeps the hoofs worn down.

I saw the illustrations of your surgery, and I feel for you. It looks worse than a ACL rebuild. I have had three clean ups up my knees, but never anything as extensive as yours. If you work like hell in your rehab though it will pay dividends. Six months after tearing an ACL and three months after surgery to clean it up but not rebuild it (I'm too old!), I was hunting klippies in hills/mountains in the vic of Messina in RSA.

Best of luck to you in your recovery and rehab. If I were you, I'd go for it as a carrot. Weidmanns Heil. Ku-dude

Thanks for the feed back and especially to Ku-dude for the extensive research -should have thought of looking on the Internet.

I guess hard work is the answer and that we all heal in different ways. I have a good physiotherapist and my surgeon is probably our best knee specialist so that part is in order.

Thanks for the offers of flatland mountain zebra but I�d really want to hunt them in the mountains! I might try for waterbuck, bushpig, springbuck, warthog (they get to be a disease don�t they?) and black wildebeest. I�ll have a months time so I can take it easy, just hope the flight won�t kill me.

I feel better already!

Thanks again.

In February, I had an internal meniscus removed through arthroscopy (3 holes) because it had been shattered when my young but energetic (100 lbs.) Labrador's head hit me in the knee. One-day clinic, 1 week on cruches, physio twice a week for a month. After that, I exercised hard to strenghten my thigh muscles and 6 months later I was hunting hard again. As a precaution, I'm still taking Glucosamine, though.