Part of ACL reconstruction rehab
ACL surgery complications: the warning signs, and how fast to act
Warning signs, and when to get help
Get emergency help now
Two of the warning signs further down this page are emergencies in their own right rather than phone calls. Both are reproduced here word for word so that nobody has to scroll for them. If one of these is what you are looking at, nothing else on this page matters tonight. Several of the same day lines also turn into an emergency once something is added to them, and the end of this section lists what those additions are, so do not read these two as the only way this page becomes an emergency.
Emergency: sudden, severe pain in your lower leg that is much worse than you would expect, especially with a tight bandage or brace on the leg. It may come with a tight, swollen leg, pain that gets worse when the muscle is stretched, numbness, pins and needles or weakness. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. This can be acute compartment syndrome, which needs urgent surgery.
Emergency: since your operation, you suddenly become short of breath, you get chest pain or pain in your upper back that may be worse when you breathe in, you cough up blood, your heart is beating very fast, or you faint. Call emergency services straight away, even if your leg looks normal. These can be signs of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
Read the last clause of that second line twice. A clot in the lung does not wait for the leg to look wrong, and a calf that looks perfectly normal is no reassurance at all.
One thing to do before you call about the first line, and it takes seconds. Take the pressure off: get the outer bandage or wrap off, along with any brace strap that is squeezing the leg, and leave the dressing stuck over the wound itself alone. Then keep that limb at about heart level rather than higher, leave the ice off, and call emergency services straight away, and do not drive yourself. Raising a tight, painful leg above heart level is the instinct to resist here, because it makes the pressure problem worse rather than better. Do not try to take a plaster cast off yourself.
Now the additions that take a same day line into this group. A calf or thigh problem that comes with shortness of breath or chest pain. A foot or toes that turn cold, pale, blue or gray. New numbness, tingling or burning in the lower leg or foot that started after a fall or an injury. A knee that looks out of shape. Weakness that is getting worse by the hour. Feeling very unwell with any of it. And the sepsis signs: a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, confusion or slurred speech, skin, lips or tongue that look blue, gray, pale or blotchy, or a rash that does not fade when you press it. On brown or black skin that color change can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet. None of those waits for somebody to ring you back. Call emergency services, and do not drive yourself anywhere. Each one is written out inside its own line in the list at the foot of this page, which gives the exact route for that sign.
Signs that need your surgical team the same day
This is the biggest group, and the one people most often sit on until the morning.
A calf or thigh that is newly swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, or that has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not feel like ordinary muscle soreness, can be a clot in the leg. Blood clots are one of the complications the NHS names after this operation, and it says some people are given compression stockings or medicine to lower the risk. If you were given stockings, injections or tablets, use them exactly as your team told you, and remember that your clot risk does not stop on the day the medicine does.
A wound that is oozing or leaking, has pus coming out of it, or whose edges are coming apart. A knee that is tender, swollen, painful or red and is not getting better or is getting worse. A temperature, or feeling hot and cold and shivery. Those are the infection group, and the NHS asks for urgent advice rather than a routine appointment for each of them.
A knee that tightens up fast, over hours rather than weeks, with more pain than the day before and no fall or twist to account for it. Bleeding into the joint and an early infection inside the joint both look like that from the outside, and neither one gets better for being left until the morning.
A knee that gave way, or that popped, shifted or twisted inside, and then swelled up within a few hours or became very painful. Keep your weight off that leg and ring the team. A fall or a twist can damage the graft or a meniscus repair, and this is the one line on the page that readers most often try to walk off.
A knee that is locked, meaning stuck bent and unwilling to straighten even after you gently try to move it, or one that suddenly will not bend or straighten as far as it did yesterday. That is a different animal from the slow stiffness of the early weeks, and it is a same day assessment.
A sudden loss of your ability to straighten the knee yourself or lift the straight leg off the bed, often after a pop, a fall or a stumble, or a dip or gap you can feel just above or below your kneecap. After a patellar tendon or quadriceps tendon graft, the tendon or the kneecap near where the graft was taken can rarely tear or break. Hamstring vs patellar tendon graft explains why that risk sits with those two grafts.
A foot that drags, catches or slaps down when you walk, or new numbness, tingling or burning in the lower leg or foot beyond the numb patch of skin near your scars. Both are same day. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, or the numbness started after a fall or an injury, or the foot or toes turn cold, pale, blue or gray, those belong in the emergency group at the top of this page instead. A numb patch of skin next to a scar is not unusual after this operation, and OrthoInfo says numbness of the outer part of the upper leg next to the incision may be temporary or permanent. What you are watching for is numbness that is new, that is spreading, or that is beyond the scar area.
If you cannot get through to the surgical team, none of these turns into a morning job while you wait for a call back. Go to urgent care or an emergency department instead, and the last section of this page gives the route country by country.
Every one of those has its full wording in the list at the foot of this page, with what to do and when it escalates. The same set is on ACL reconstruction rehab deliberately, because it is what a reader should meet wherever they land.
What does a failed ACL graft feel like?
Usually like the day of the original injury rather than like a slow fade, which is why it is a same day route and not a wait and see.
The account people give is a pop, a shift or a twist inside the knee, most often while landing, turning or losing their footing, then swelling that comes up within a few hours, then a knee that does not feel like it will hold them. The NHS says the graft can tear and that this may need further surgery. A graft can go in the first months, when it is still being rebuilt by your own body, or years later on a single bad landing, so the time since your operation is not a reason to wait and see. This page gives no window, because there is no point after which it stops being possible and a window would only invite you to talk yourself out of a phone call.
One thing this page will not do: tell you whether your graft has failed. A knee that gave way after a reconstruction can mean the graft, a meniscus repair coming apart, or neither, and those are separated by an examination and a scan rather than by a description. What matters is that all three go the same way, which is weight off the leg and an assessment today.
Not every unsteady feeling is this. A knee that feels a little unsure now and then, with no swelling and no pain, is worth telling your physio or surgeon about in the next few days rather than tonight, and it is often a strength and control problem, not a structural one. A knee that gives way goes into what sits behind that feeling, and swelling, locking and giving way covers the same three symptoms from the meniscus side.
How likely a second injury is, which knee is at risk, and what lowers the risk are a separate subject with its own numbers, and they are on preventing a second ACL injury. This page is about what to do in the hour you notice something.
What are the signs of infection after ACL surgery?
Infection is the complication people ask about most, and the NHS describes the chance of it as small. It shows up in two ways, and the second one is quieter, which is why they need separating.
The loud version is the wound. More redness, more heat, more swelling or more pain than yesterday. Oozing, leaking, pus, or edges that start to part. A high temperature, or feeling hot and cold and shivery. The NHS lists each of those among the reasons to get urgent advice after this operation rather than waiting for a routine appointment.
The quiet version is the knee itself. Tenderness, swelling, pain or redness in the knee that is not improving or is getting worse, with or without much happening at the wound, and often with feeling generally unwell. That is the one that gets explained away as a hard physio session, and the thing that separates them is direction over several days: a session leaves you sore and settles, an infection builds.
Why the same day, and not the morning after. An infection inside the joint is the one complication that goes straight for the new graft, and it is handled better the day somebody notices it. In a review of 11,451 ACL reconstructions at one hospital, 48 infections inside the joint were identified, which is 0.42%, and the graft had to be taken out in 15 of those 48 (Marom and colleagues, 2022). Rare, in other words, and expensive when it happens, which is the whole argument for ringing the team instead of waiting to see how the night goes.
Redness is harder to see on brown or black skin, so weigh warmth, swelling, pain and how you feel in yourself more heavily than color, and take a photograph in daylight to compare tomorrow. And if you feel very unwell with any of it, that is an emergency department rather than a phone call, and the sepsis clause in the warning signs below names the signs that make it a call to the emergency services instead.
A knee that is hot or that comes with a temperature is never written off as an overdone session on this site. That distinction runs through ACL surgery recovery timeline and through a swollen knee too.
A knee losing movement: contact your physio or surgeon within a few days
This one is not an emergency and it is not a wait either, and the date you raise it genuinely matters.
What to report: a knee that will not straighten as far as the other one or bend as far as your physio expects, and that is not improving from week to week. Or a knee that is slowly losing movement it had. Or one that still stops short of straight in the months after the operation. Those go to your physio or surgeon within the next few days rather than at your next routine appointment.
Tell them how it feels at the end of straightening, because the wording changes what they think. A knee that feels blocked, that clunks or that hurts right at the very end of straightening is a different report from a knee that simply feels tight. A small lump of scar tissue at the front of the knee, called a cyclops lesion, can block the last few degrees. In an international survey of 250 knee surgeons across 25 countries, it was estimated at 1% to 5%, typically became symptomatic 3 to 6 months after the reconstruction, and was usually managed first with rehab aimed at straightening, with a short keyhole operation kept for a knee that stays stuck (D'Ambrosi and colleagues, 2026).
Whatever is behind it, stretching harder is not the answer, and it is the first thing most people try. An irritated knee swells and then loses more movement, so forcing it is the one approach that reliably makes the problem worse.
What is normal after this operation, and what is not?
Most of what frightens people in the first months is ordinary, and there are two rules that sort nearly all of it.
The first day is the exception, and what happens on it is the anaesthetic rather than the knee. Many teams numb the leg with an injection around a nerve to control pain after the operation, and a block given at the front of the thigh can leave the thigh muscle weak for the first 12 to 24 hours, which is linked to limping and to falls (Edwards and colleagues, 2020). A spinal anaesthetic does something similar for a shorter time, because the NHS describes it as leaving you with no feeling from the waist down. So the knee can buckle without warning when you first stand, with nothing wrong with the graft at all. Use the crutches and the brace exactly as you were told, stand up with something solid to hold, and have somebody with you the first time you walk to the bathroom.
If you are on your own, sit on the edge of the bed for a few moments before you stand, keep your phone in a pocket rather than in a hand, and use both crutches for every trip, including the ones in the night. That weakness wears off over hours as the feeling comes back. Weakness or numbness that is still there after the time your team gave you, or that is getting worse instead of wearing off, is not the block, and the same day lines above are where it belongs.
The first rule is the next morning. Some pain and stiffness during the exercises are expected, and so is a stretching feeling. That is usually fine if it settles soon after you finish and the knee is no more swollen or sore the next day. Sharp pain, pain that builds with every repetition, or a knee that is clearly more swollen the next morning means the load was too much, and the answer is to drop back a step rather than stop altogether.
The second rule is direction. Swelling, pain, bruising and stiffness should all be on a downward trend over weeks, with bumps after harder sessions. Anything moving steadily the other way, over days rather than hours, belongs on the phone. That applies to swelling, to wound redness, to pain at rest, and to movement.
Things that are ordinary and alarm people anyway: a numb patch of skin beside the scar, clicking or clunking as the knee bends, the thigh looking visibly smaller than the other one, swelling that reappears every time you do more, and a knee that aches in bed after a busy day.
The NHS also advises keeping the leg raised when you rest and using an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel for 15 to 20 minutes every 2 to 3 hours in the early weeks, though not where the skin is numb. There is one exception to raising the leg. If your toes are numb, tingling or burning, or the cast or boot feels tight, do not prop the foot higher than your hip and do not put ice on it, and read the warning signs below for what to do instead.
The same exception applies to a brace or a bandage. If the foot beyond the bandage is numb, tingling or burning, if a brace or a bandage on the leg feels tight, or if the leg is getting tighter and more painful, loosen the straps or take the bandage off, keep the leg at about heart level rather than higher, leave the ice off, and read the warning signs below for what to do instead. The emergency section at the top of this page is where those signs are set out in full.
Things that are not ordinary, however normal they feel at 2am: a knee getting more swollen week on week, a wound still leaking in the second week, a temperature, a calf that is sore in its own right, and any sudden change after a pop or a stumble. The exercises are not the thing to adjust for any of those.
How common are complications after ACL surgery?
Uncommon, and that is the headline, not a reassurance to end on.
The NHS says most people who have ACL surgery have no complications, that any complications are usually minor and can be treated, and that the risk depends on your age and general health. It names blood clots in the leg that can travel to the lungs, wound infection, damage to a blood vessel, nerve or ligament during the operation, ongoing pain, stiffness or difficulty moving the knee, instability when standing or walking, problems where the graft was taken from, and a graft that tears and may need more surgery.
For clots specifically, NICE guidance asks doctors to weigh your risk of a clot against your risk of bleeding when deciding about preventive medicine after knee surgery (NICE NG89). That is a decision your team makes, not one to act on from here, and if you were given stockings, injections or tablets, the useful thing you can do is use them exactly as instructed.
None of that softens the lines above, and it is not meant to. The reason this page exists is that the uncommon problems are the time sensitive ones. A clot, a joint infection and a failing graft all do better when they are found on the day somebody noticed something than a week later, which is the entire argument for reading this once while nothing is wrong. Red flags in physiotherapy explains how this kind of list is built and why it is sorted by urgency.
Who to call, and what to have ready
In the first weeks, the team that operated is the right first call for anything to do with the wound, the knee itself, a fever or a fall, and their number is usually on the discharge letter. Put it somewhere findable today, instead of hunting for it at nine in the evening.
If you cannot reach anybody, do not let that turn a same day sign into a tomorrow morning sign. In the UK, an urgent appointment with your GP, and NHS 111 in England when the surgery is closed. In the United States and Canada, your surgeon's office, which usually has an on-call arrangement, and the hospital where the operation was done; many Canadian provinces also run a telephone health advice line. In Australia, healthdirect is free and answers at any hour. In New Zealand, Healthline is the free 24 hour service staffed by registered nurses. For anything in the emergency group, the instruction is the same everywhere: call emergency services or go to an emergency department.
No telephone number appears on this page, because they differ by country and a wrong one costs minutes.
Before you call, spend two minutes getting this together. Have the date of the operation and which knee. Which graft was used, and whether a meniscus or cartilage was repaired at the same time, because both change what your team will worry about.
Your medicines, including anything to lower your clot risk and when the last dose was. Your temperature if you can take it. How long this has been going on and whether it is worse than yesterday. A photograph of the wound taken in daylight. And whether you have had a fall, including the one you were not going to mention.
Expect to be asked to come in. That is not a verdict: a suspected clot and a suspected joint infection are both settled by examining and testing, not down a phone line. If you are sent to an emergency department, do not drive yourself.
If you are comparing this with a different operation, warning signs after a knee replacement is a separate page, because an implant and a graft fail in different ways and the lines are not interchangeable. For when it is safe to start running again, which is where a few of these signs first show themselves, see ACL return to running.
This page is education rather than advice about your own knee. Your surgical team's instructions come first, and no page can examine a leg.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: sudden, severe pain in your lower leg that is much worse than you would expect, especially with a tight bandage or brace on the leg. It may come with a tight, swollen leg, pain that gets worse when the muscle is stretched, numbness, pins and needles or weakness. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. This can be acute compartment syndrome, which needs urgent surgery.
- Emergency: since your operation, you suddenly become short of breath, you get chest pain or pain in your upper back that may be worse when you breathe in, you cough up blood, your heart is beating very fast, or you faint. Call emergency services straight away, even if your leg looks normal. These can be signs of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
Get help today
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: since your operation, your wound is oozing, leaking or has pus coming out of it, or its edges start to come apart, or your knee is tender, swollen, painful or red and it is not getting better or is getting worse, or you have a high temperature or feel hot and cold or shivery. Redness can be harder to see on brown or black skin. Contact your surgical team the same day, or get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them. These can be signs of an infection in the wound or the knee joint. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
- Same day: your knee swells up quickly over a few hours and feels tight and full, with more pain than the day before, and there was no fall, twist or pop to explain it. This can happen while your temperature is normal and the wound looks fine. Contact your surgical team the same day, or get assessed the same day at urgent care or an emergency department if you cannot reach them. Bleeding into the joint and an early infection inside the joint can both look like this from the outside, and a knee that is hot to touch, or a temperature alongside it, makes an infection more likely. Do not wait for a call back if either is there. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: your knee gives way, or you feel a pop, a shift or a twist inside it, and it swells up within a few hours or is very painful. Keep your weight off it and contact your surgical team, or get assessed the same day at urgent care or an emergency department. A fall or a twist can damage the new ligament (graft) or a meniscus repair. If the knee looks out of shape, or your foot turns numb, cold or pale, go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. If the knee only feels a little unsteady now and then, with no swelling or pain, it is not an emergency, but tell your physio or surgeon in the next few days.
- Same day: the knee is locked, which means it is stuck bent and you cannot straighten it, even after gently trying to move it, or it suddenly will not bend or straighten as far as it did before. Contact your surgical team, or get assessed the same day at urgent care or an emergency department. A torn piece of meniscus can get caught in the joint and block it. This is different from the slow, gradual stiffness of the early weeks.
- Same day: you suddenly cannot straighten your knee by yourself or lift your leg straight when you could before, often after a pop, a fall or a stumble, or you notice a dip or a gap just above or below your kneecap. Keep your weight off it and contact your surgical team, or get assessed the same day at urgent care or an emergency department. After a patellar tendon or quadriceps tendon graft, the tendon or the kneecap near where the graft was taken can rarely tear or break.
- Same day: a leg or foot that is getting weaker, for example your foot drags, catches on the ground or slaps down when you walk (foot drop). Get medical advice the same day. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: new numbness, tingling or burning in your lower leg or foot, beyond the numb patch of skin near your scars. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If it started after a fall or an injury, or your foot or toes turn cold, pale, blue or gray, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
Book an appointment
- Within a few days: your knee still will not straighten as far as the other one, or bend as far as your physio expects, and it is not improving from week to week, or it is slowly losing movement it had. This is not an emergency, but contact your physio or surgeon within the next few days. Tell them if the knee feels blocked right at the end of straightening, or clunks or hurts there, rather than simply feeling tight, and tell them if it stops short of straight in the months after your operation. A small lump of scar tissue at the front of the knee (a cyclops lesion) can block the last few degrees, and when it does it usually shows up 3 to 6 months after surgery. It is uncommon, most surgeons treat it first with rehab aimed at straightening, and a short keyhole operation to remove it is kept for a knee that stays stuck (D'Ambrosi and colleagues, 2026). Stretching harder is not the answer either way. Getting the knee fully straight is one of the first aims of rehab.
Common questions
Is this swelling normal after ACL surgery?
Some swelling is expected for months, and the question that sorts it out is not how much but which way it is going. Swelling that settles overnight and comes back after a session is the knee telling you the session was a bit much, so you drop back a step. Swelling that is building week by week instead of settling, or that comes up within a few hours after the knee gave way, popped or shifted, is different, and the warning signs on this page say who to contact and how fast. A knee that tightens up over a few hours with nothing to account for it belongs in the same group. So does a knee that is hot to touch, or swollen alongside a temperature or a leaking wound, which is not an overdone session at all. That one needs your surgical team the same day rather than your next physio appointment.
What does an infection after ACL surgery look like?
The NHS lists a small chance of infection in the knee after this operation, and the things it asks you to get urgent advice for are a wound that is oozing or has pus coming out of it, a high temperature or feeling hot and cold, throbbing or cramping leg pain, and knee tenderness, swelling, pain or redness that is not improving or is getting worse. Redness is harder to see on brown or black skin, so warmth, swelling, pain and how you feel in yourself carry more weight than color. The pattern that matters is direction: a wound settling down week by week is the normal course, and a wound or a knee getting angrier is not. Feeling generally unwell with it is a reason to be seen rather than to wait, and the sepsis clause in the warning signs on this page says when it becomes an emergency call.
What does a failed ACL graft feel like?
Usually like the original injury rather than like a slow decline. The common account is a pop, a shift or a twist inside the knee, often while landing, turning or stumbling, followed by swelling within a few hours and a knee that feels as though it will not hold you. The NHS says the graft can tear and that this may need more surgery. It can happen in the first months while the graft is still being rebuilt, or years afterwards, so how long ago you were operated on does not change what you do about it. What a page cannot do is tell you whether your graft has gone, because a knee that gave way can mean a graft, a meniscus repair or neither, and the three are told apart by examination and imaging. The route is the same whichever it turns out to be: keep your weight off it and get assessed the same day.
Why will my knee not straighten after ACL surgery?
In the first weeks, usually pain and swelling, and sometimes how you are resting it. The NHS advises not putting a pillow under your knee when you rest, which is the single most common self-inflicted cause we see, and getting the knee fully straight is one of the first aims of rehab. Later on it is a different question. A knee that is not gaining movement from week to week, or that is losing movement it had, or that stops short of straight months after the operation, is a call to your physio or surgeon within a few days. Tell them if it feels blocked, clunks or hurts right at the end of straightening rather than simply feeling tight, because a small lump of scar tissue can block the last few degrees and that typically shows up 3 to 6 months after surgery. Stretching harder is not the answer either way.
When do I call the surgeon instead of the physio?
Anything to do with the wound, a fever, the calf, your breathing, a fall, or a knee that gave way, popped, locked or suddenly will not straighten goes to the surgical team. Anything to do with the exercises, the pace, pain during a session, or a knee that is sore the morning after goes to your physio or physical therapist. A knee that is stiffening rather than loosening sits between them, and either will do as the first call as long as you make it within a few days rather than waiting for a routine appointment. Do not let not being able to reach the surgical team turn a same day sign into a tomorrow morning one, and do not worry about calling the wrong one of the two. They would both rather hear it early.
How common are complications after ACL surgery?
The NHS puts it plainly: most people who have ACL surgery have no complications, and where there are any they are usually minor and can be treated, with risk depending on your age and general health. That is worth knowing and it changes nothing above. The lines on this page exist because the uncommon things are time sensitive rather than because they are likely, and a clot, a joint infection and a failing graft are all handled better early than late. Read the page once now, while nothing is wrong, so that you recognize a line instead of searching at midnight.
References
- NHS. Complications of ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery. Page last reviewed 17 July 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/acl-anterior-cruciate-ligament-surgery/complications/
- NHS. Recovering from ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery. Page last reviewed 17 July 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/acl-anterior-cruciate-ligament-surgery/recovering/
- NHS. ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery. Page last reviewed 17 July 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/acl-anterior-cruciate-ligament-surgery/what-it-is/
- NHS. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Page last reviewed 30 April 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
- NHS. Pulmonary embolism. Page last reviewed 25 May 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pulmonary-embolism/
- NHS. Sepsis. Page last reviewed 14 May 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sepsis/
- NHS. Compartment syndrome. Page last reviewed 4 September 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/compartment-syndrome/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. ACL injury: does it require surgery? OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/treatment/acl-injury-does-it-require-surgery/
- Marom N, Kapadia M, Nguyen JT, et al. Factors Associated With an Intra-articular Infection After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Large Single-Institution Cohort Study. The American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2022;50(5):1229-1236. https://doi.org/10.1177/03635465221078311
- Edwards MD, Bethea JP, Hunnicutt JL, Slone HS, Woolf SK. Effect of Adductor Canal Block Versus Femoral Nerve Block on Quadriceps Strength, Function, and Postoperative Pain After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Systematic Review of Level 1 Studies. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2020;48(9):2305-2313. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546519883589
- D'Ambrosi R, Helito CP, Della Villa F, et al. Practice patterns, controversies, and proposed management algorithm for cyclops syndrome after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: An international survey. Journal of ISAKOS. 2026;19:101165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisako.2026.101165
- Kotsifaki R, Korakakis V, King E, et al. Aspetar clinical practice guideline on rehabilitation after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023;57(9):500-514. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-106158
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Venous thromboembolism in over 16s: reducing the risk of hospital-acquired deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. NICE guideline NG89. Published 21 March 2018, last updated 13 August 2019. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng89
- Healthdirect Australia. healthdirect. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/
- New Zealand Government. Healthline. https://www.govt.nz/organisations/healthline/
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-24.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.