“Can you recover from ACL tear without surgery?”

The short answer is no. Without an ACL, most patients' knees will "give out" on them while playing any type of cutting sports (rapid changes in direction). This giving out is painful, and will further damage the knee. You can elect to give up playing sports that involve cutting if you want. However many studies show knees without an ACL get arthritis much quicker than normal knees. For these reasons, most Orthopaedic surgeons recommend reconstruction of a torn ACL except in older patients.

Hope it helps!!

Dr. Bose

You can; it depends on your age.

It depends on your activity demands. ACL tears typically do not heal.

Your mobility will be seriously limited and you will have bad arthritis in the knee many years before if you had the surgery.