Had 2nd Acl reconstruction on 23rd of April 2015 for my left knee.

Timeline of knee injuries :

Wed 12th October 2011 - First ACL injury. Surgery on 14/12/2011.

Advanced through first rehab, discharged from NHS 4 months and 2 weeks later as strength was 95% of right. However had issues. A lack of a few degrees of hyper extention and recurrent swelling was viewed as ok and would eventually settle down.

This was not the case and meant my life became a processes of popping ibuprofen and icing numerous times a day. With this being my A2 year this was not ideal and I couldn't enjoy general life either, if I went out or had any alcohol my knee would swell and I would have to cope with this. Walking, general movement is all affected by swelling so trust me if you think you are fed up managing swelling for a short time period you are lucky! After a long struggle involving new opinions (I had moved up to Loughborough Uni at this point) ,scans etc it showed I had a cyclops lesion in the intercondular notch (thickening of the graft) which was repaired in Leicester on 28/12/12.

If you are not aware any swelling will cause muscles to 'switch off' and I had a few imbalances that needed to be corrected due to the time I had been affected. Perhaps I was silly and returned too early playing touch rugby and activity that summer.

A partial tear in my right knee ligaments in the following pre-season meant I was again out of playing but eventually after a nice 2 years, 2 months, and 26 days after my first injuryI played a rugby match again! I then went on to start matches in National 3 and U20 county matches.

The summerof 2014 was going to be a good time to launch my self on physically and I wasstarting to really get back into good shape, lifting heavy weights and runningbetter. However injury struck again.

This time I managed to get DrShaun O'Leary on the NHS in Reading and he felt that I might be able to getaway without a reconstruction as my instability was small. After an arthroscopyon 31/10/14, it tuned out my ACL had cleanly snapped with a large bucket shapemeniscus tear on top of previous damage...in his words my knee looks nothinglike a young person and I will suffer from arthritis in the future...cheers Doc!After a recovery period I hadto make sure I was in really good condition so worked hard, even managed tohit PBs in the gym. Now after a long process the reconstruction has happenedand I must rebuild again to achieve my aim of returning to rugby.

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