Skiing, ACL Repair to High Heels

(Mamen ruptured her ACL whilst skiing and had surgery in Spain – her surgeon wanted her to wear a brace for a couple of months whilst walking which was for longer than the average following this surgery in the UK. In physiotherapy, her brace was removed for rehabilitation).

“Last year I broke my ACL skiing. My fall was followed by surgery where they reconstructed the ligament joining it to the tibia with a screw. After that, spent several days without moving at all, one month on crutches, and two more on a huge brace – and I was, obviously, limping everywhere. One of my friends had got the same injury and recommended Back In Action UK. He said to have been very pleased with them having a great expertise on ACL rehabilitation. They also have 4-5 clinics around London which was very convenient. A few weeks after my operation I started to get physiotherapy in Back In Action UK with Julia Peters. She seemed a really good professional and knew first thing I needed to get back was the lack of confidence on my leg as well as realising how much work I’ll need to put on if I wanted my knee back at 100% – which has always been my goal!

ACL rehab is like everything in life “you need to work hard if you want to get to the top”, which in this case it translates into being as strong, flexible and balanced as before the accident. During my weekly visits to Julia she massaged my leg, taught me exercises and planned the rehab sessions that I had to undertake by myself at the gym. Probably, one of the most valuable things that I learnt from Julia was to understand my injury; to understand the rehabilitation process and how bones, muscles and ligaments join all together around the knee. This is quite important because only when the patient understands the injury is also able to understand which rehab exercises suit best at each point on time.

Physical rehabilitation can be a tough, mostly if it stays daily for several months on top of your working life. The painful and frequent exercises can get so tiring and boring. And it is because of that the most important thing is to keep ALWAYS in mind that giving up is NOT an option, and that you CANNOT stop exercising your injured leg until is 100% back!! Stiffness, pain, sore muscles, demoralization… all those are normal feelings when rehabilitating; but all of that goes away with the time – believe me, it does!

Julia was extremely helpful and gave an excellent guidance on my rehab. After all I didn’t only get my flexibility, strength and normal movement back but also learnt how to stretch and exercise properly using the gym equipment, and how to do it depending on what I wanted to achieve. The process was long – 9 months in total until being 100%. And still a couple of more months until I decided to jump on my high heels again! After all, I can now say that my knee rehab is probably one of the things I feel the proudest of!!

Finally, I must say that the Back In Action UK Admin did an fantastic job dealing with my medical insurance company and myself. Hopefully none of you will need rehab, but if you ever do; go to Back In Action UK; go to Julia Peters!!”

Mamen, Consultant