Symptoms of ACL Injuries
If your child’s knee suddenly swells after an accident or injury, they may have a torn ACL or another serious knee problem. Besides swelling, symptoms of ACL injuries include:
- A popping sound at the time of the injury
- Severe pain
- Later, knee feels unstable
ACL Injuries Diagnosis
To help protect your child from more injuries that could hurt growing bones and joints, it is important to get a thorough evaluation and proper treatment.
When you and your child come to our clinic, we:
- Ask what happened before the knee began to swell and hurt.
- Examine your child’s knee. To doctors trained in sports medicine, knees with ACL tears often feel loose.
We cannot be sure that your child has a torn ACL until the swelling in the knee has gone down. This takes about seven to 10 days. At that time, we may take:
- Radiographs of your child’s knee to get more information on what is wrong.
- An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan if it is not clear that the ACL is torn or if we think your child may have other injuries.