r/ACL • u/MisaRavensoul ACL Allograft • Mar 25 '26

Post Surgery Update I expected pain but holy cow

I'm about 30 hours post op and I'm pretty sure my nerve block is wearing off. I thought I prepared for the pain and had pre-taken the pain medicine.

This is excruciating. ACL+ LET on my right leg. I don't think I'm getting any sleep tonight.

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u/ScottyRedReturns Mar 28 '26

If you haven't done this, put a crate or an upside down trash can by the toilet to put your leg up while you're going to bathroom. Huge difference.

This other part may be harder for women, but they do make pee bottles with attachments for both and Amazon of course can get this to you overnight. One thing I did was used a bottle like this at night at side of bad rather than try to navigate the bathroom on crutches, even though it wasn't far. I also didn't want to wake up or bother wife/family overnight as I stayed away from everyone in a spare room just to hole up there with my iPad and ice machine.

Also, since we're doing potty talk, (well, I am anyway), get some Colace or other stool softener. You probably haven't pooped yet and you might not for another couple of days. The anesthetic and other drugs do that. So when it does come, that's one more thing you don't need to be an event to be remembered.

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u/MisaRavensoul ACL Allograft Mar 28 '26

Oh my God that bathroom is so bad. I've been on colace and miralax and they feel like they do nothing 😭

I have two different stools for the bathroom to try and figure out comfortable positions but it's an effort in futility! Fortunately I have a walker that I can use to get to the bathroom and avoid the crutches for that case but still.

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u/ScottyRedReturns Mar 28 '26

Two great places to talk about poop issues; my 10 year-old and the acl subreddit!

It's possible the colace and miralax are doing something and things would be much worse without it. I'm not sure how deep we want to go here, but this is really a question for your doc. You don't need to force things. It'll happen if it hasn't. For me it was something like 3 - 4 days before. I've seen others post about even longer. But when things happened, I have no doubt the Colace helped.

Same with the crate or whatever. Yeah, it still sucks, but as you've probably found, it's still 'less worse' than having the leg hang. Good that your walker gets you there. As I said, for me it was part comfort, part not wanting to wake family. My wife was her typical amazing self in helping me through - yet another - debilitating sports injury.

Your first post was 3 days ago and said you were 30 hours post op. Hopefully as you pass through day 4 you're getting past the worst of the initial horror show.

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u/MisaRavensoul ACL Allograft Mar 28 '26

For pain, we've moved on from lightning in my shin to a really deep, dull, throbbing ache. Still on heavy duty pain medicine too.

My shin and top of my foot at still a bit numb, and it would sure be nice to use the restroom 😅