Ouch, sounds painful. FYI here's the grades and what they correspond to. It may be that you suffered a small dislocation and resultant subluxation during the incident.


  • Grade 1 tear: a small number of fibres are torn resulting in some pain but allowing full function
  • Grade 2 tear: a significant number of fibres are torn with moderate loss of function.
  • Grade 3 tear: all fibres are ruptured resulting in knee instability and major loss of function. Often other structures are also injured such as the menisci or collateral ligaments. Surgery is often required.


In my opinion it is to early to tell if surgery is required but for now mine would be a conservative approach i.e. non-surgical. I would say you need acute treatment for 3-4 weeks to see how it settles down. If it is only a grade 1 tear then the rest will heal over 4-6 weeks to a state where you can begin to test things functionally. Might want to brace it for now to give the retinacular tissue some support while its healing.