I remember one of the first things I googled after learning I tore my ACL was what the surgery was like and how the grafts would work. I read up about four different grafts: patellar, hamstring, cadaver, and quad. I read the pros and cons and ultimately it came down to a decision between the hamstring and the patellar graft.
I met with my surgeon beforehand to talk about the surgery. He was a highly recommended surgeon who had worked with the Oakland Athletics Baseball team and UC Berkely sports teams as well. After he examined my knee, he explained how he had been perfecting his ACL hamstring graft and that he performed the surgery in a very non-invasive safe way. He explained that he would be happy to do the patellar graft, but that his specialty was the hamstring.
Also, I had read that using the patella causes early onset of patellar tendinitis in the knee and that it can be painful to kneel after the surgery. I joked that as a Catholic, I need to be able to kneel to pray so I had to go with hamstring to make sure I could still pray!
I was worried that doing the hamstring graft would result in a weaker hamstring and since a strong hamstring is important for stability in the knee that this would affect my recovery and play afterwards. To make up for this, during rehab, I spent a lot of time strengthening my hamstrings! But that is definitely something to consider when deciding on which graft to go with.
Ultimately, while the patellar has been deemed the golden standard, I decided that the hamstring graft was the way to go because my surgeon had perfected his technique and also because of the lesser chance of getting patellar tendinitis (Note: I do have a little patellar tendinitis in my right knee now. Nothing that causes me pain, but the trainer has told me that it is there. So I wasn’t able to prevent it entirely.)
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