Things were moving right along, smoothly. The gentle stretching exercises were progressing, and I was able to move the knee forward and backward, with ease. Until, everything just stopped. I could, almost within minutes, no longer bend my knee — because it felt as if a huge mass had suddenly blossomed under my kneecap.
At therapy, I discovered, this was pretty much true. Scar tissue was already forming under my knee cap.
And, as if it were some barbaric, hidden therapy module, my therapist grabbed my still-very sore-tender-from-surgery kneecap, and started to forcefully jerk the kneecap back and forth, up and down and side to side.
I writhed in pain, while she took charge of my kneecap and proceeded to macerate the scar tissue that was quickly forming.
Later, I googled, “scar tissue, ACL surgery,” and found some very sad statistics on recovery rates and scar tissue, and knew this would not be something to let slip away. Scar tissue can be worked out, painfully, only to return, a few hours later. This is dangerous. I read just long enough to terrify myself about “post-surgery-surgery that involves scrapping. I thought of the drugs, and set about creating an avoid-surgery-plan.
Massage, it turns out is the preferred, speedy method to stay one step ahead of the body’s massive repair system of giving too much scar tissue too soon.
You’ve turned a corner when you decide that you want to do this to yourself, at home, so you ask your therapist to teach you.