Week 2, day 1

It's been a week since surgery. The swelling has come down a good amount and the knee feels better overall. Of course, compared to my left knee, the right knee is still pretty darn swollen.

Last night was the first night without Percocet. I had a hard time falling asleep, I felt hyper/not tired. This was probably due to me sleeping in until 11:30am on Sunday. I can't seem to get the brace on just quite right. The edge of the upper portion of the calf sleeve is right around an incision site, and so it has the potential to rub right against it. I woke up in the middle of the night with my hamstring sore at the top of the tibia. I rolled over a few times and the soreness seemed to move into the upper portion of the hamstrings. The knee was throbbing. I would say about 5/10 pain scale between everything. The brace felt awkward.

I got up at 7am and took two 200mg Advils with a bunch of water. At about 7:30, the pain seemed to sort itself out and it was much more tolerable. I then felt around the hinges of the ACL brace and they seemed to be a good half-inch below the knee hinge point. I looked at the brace and it slid down over the course of the night. I realigned the brace, this time going a bit higher on the calf (still trying to center the brace hinge with the knee). I tightened the calf straps much more. It seemed less painful to do that now (again, because there is that incision site under the top strap of the calf) and I tried to spread the tightening force by making the main wrap-around foam part as tight as I could (before tightening it more with the strap). This seemed to do the trick. I went back to sleep and woke up at 10:30am, much better slept. I ignored my 9am alarm. Working from home today, but I can afford to sleep in.

So technically, last night could argue for not dropping Percs. However, I'll try one more night, with a more careful brace fitment, and some ibuprofen before bed. Let's see what happens.

Quads.

So the quads on the right side are noticeably smaller. I wrote earlier that I had 0 quad lag, but I think that's wishful thinking. I must have around 1-2 degrees quad lag (nothing major like 10 degrees though1), as the heel definitely lags a touch when I fit the leg. I think it has actually gotten a touch worse since Saturday, but that could just be my imagination.

I read this interesting article that basically states that muscle atrophy and failure of voluntary muscle activation explains 85% loss of the quadriceps strength. Specifically, "[analysis] revealed that failure of voluntary activation contributed nearly twice as much as atrophy did to the loss of quadriceps strength."

So basically, my muscles are there, they are not just being activated.