Good luck and take care.

They had me up and walking immediately after surgery. Most of the exercises involve moving the joint to keep the attached muscles and ligaments flexible and strong...also, to prevent blood clots by making the calves and quads pump blood...the legs are considered a second pump for the circulatory system.

I have gone up and down stairs using instructions of "good leg up and bad leg down"...they gave very detailed instructions for this. My instructions were to baby the knee through the weekend, but I will be at work on Monday and doing my weight lifting modified on Monday...this means mostly upper body work and sitting on a ball or bench, sitting quad lifts, and I was told that I can do elliptical or biking for about 1.2 hour.

No deep squats or lunges are about all that I can't do for about 4 weeks. Full recover will be in about six months but they really do push for movement pretty quickly these days.

@thinktwice seems so...I mean, usualy AT requires about 6 weeks for rest...

@VineetHonkan oh you should definitely not over do it...I think it depends on a lot of your physical condition before surgery ... it is easy to be fooled into thinking you feel wonderful due to drugs but you must not over do it...the damage is seen the next day...soreness, etc. I am just following my surgeons's instructions carefully

@thinktwice well, surgeon knows more...I mean, I was put in an immobilizer after my knee replacement surgery...I mean, when my knee slipped, it had rolled over to the side (luckily this was on my left knee, so my when my left knee buckled I fell on my right leg, but it was straightened out in the recovery position lol)...So I had two operations...one to roll the knee back into place (I was put under, and immediately after I was put in an immobilizer). I had to visit the doctor again the next day for an mri and my patellar tendon tore so that had to be fixed, the following week. Then I had to keep the immobilizer on for six weeks...no exercise no nothing...after 6 weeks I went to the athletic therapist at my college and did 6 sessions with them...on the plus side I forced myself to walk (interestingly two days after y accident, I went to see a movie and had to climb stairs. Using my crutch, and the good leg up/bad leg down technique, I went and saw Interstellar!)...but after a few weeks the immobilizer became too cumbersome so I had to remove it to let my leg breathe...

Were you put in an immobilizer after?

@VineetHonkan Wow...no...my surgery was not complicated at all...one small hole for the incision, one for the camera...he repaired the tear, cleaned out the arthritis and debris...I have two little bandaids and a cloth bandage holding them...that is all...not even a knee brace...yours and many others had much more major surgery! This one was out patient...20 minutes!

that's awesome! Well, hope you get better!

@thinktwice Here are some pics of what happened to me back on December 3rd 2014. I was playing pick up basketball at my college, and was running for a layup at high speed, hit the brakes really hard at low post, turned and jumped. This was the result (the first one IS graphic):

@VineetHonkan A friend of mine had a similar operation...and yes, it is way worse with more tissues involved...but seems like you did well and we should encourage others to keep up with fitness before something bad happens and to progress slowly to get back into fitness after surgery...don't ever give up...the human body is amazing!