How Can I Tell if I Have an ACL Injury?

An ACL injury happens when a sprain or tear occurs in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The ACL is a tissue band connecting your shinbone (tibia) to your thigh bone (femur). You can suffer an ACL injury while playing sports or whenever a sudden stop or rapid change in direction occurs. You’ll be able to tell that you have an ACL injury if you hear a pop in your knee, experience swelling, have pain when you place your weight on the leg, or feel unstable when standing or walking.

Dr. Christie Lehman is a board-certified doctor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Asheville Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Asheville, NC. She specializes in offering nonsurgical knee treatments, like for ACL injuries. If you have recently suffered from an ACL injury or believe that you have an ACL injury, she will examine you and listen to all your concerns. In some cases, testing is ordered to obtain a solid diagnosis. If you have an ACL injury, then she will discuss treatment options with you.

The severity of your ACL injury will dictate the type of treatment you’ll need to undergo or if you need surgery to effectively replace the torn ligament. In some cases, you might also need to undergo rehabilitation. Rehabilitation exercises will help you strengthen the area and attain greater stability.

Historically, the only way to fix a torn ACL was with surgery. However, Dr. Lehman at Asheville Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Asheville, NC offers orthobiological treatment options to improve function, reduce pain and regain structural integrity after an ACL tear.

Nonsurgical treatment options for ACL

Corticosteroid injections have been the go-to way to alleviate knee pain for years. However, the injections are often toxic to surrounding tissue. A total knee replacement for an ACL injury is extraordinarily complex, invasive, and expensive. Plus, you’ll face a long recovery time after surgery.

Ongoing medication maintenance is not without dangers too. You can quickly become dangerously addicted to opioid painkillers. Plus, pain medication does not solve the problem, it only treats the discomfort. Over time, you will also build up a resistance to the pain medication, and it will take more of it to attain results until you reach a dangerously prominent level that not only poses the problem of addiction but can also impact other body organs.

Luckily, you do have nonsurgical treatment options for ACL. Dr. Lehman offers orthobiologic treatments that use the body’s own cells and growth factors to stimulate healing. She offers cellular therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP).

The medical team at Asheville Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine is committed to treating ACL knee injuries and other knee problems with minimally invasive techniques and treatments. The goal is to give patients a virtually pain-free life while restoring their freedom of movement.

Schedule an ACL knee injury consultation in Asheville, NC

Are you suffering from an ACL injury? If so, we invite you to schedule a consultation with Dr. Christie Lehman at Asheville Regenerative Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Asheville. NC. She will sit down with you to listen to your concerns. After looking over your medical history and evaluating your ACL injury, she will go over noninvasive ACL treatment options such as cellular therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP). Contact us today to learn more and book a consultation.