Rider still not ready to race

Heinrich Haussler from BAHRAIN MERIDA Pro Cycling Team is still not ready to start racing due to his knee injury. Currently he is undergoing physiotherapy with electric waves, but several orthopaedic experts agree that he needs time to heal. It is not known yet, when he will be able to return to the track.
“The accidental injury, which occurred at the end of November 2016, caused him severe left knee sprain with capsular edema," Dr. Carlo Guardascione, member of BAHRAIN MERIDA medical staff, said. "The first instrumental examinations, including MRI showed an important edema by impact of the left femoral condyle and a suspicion of cartilage damage.”
After many orthopaedic specialist visits in Germany and additional consultations in Italy and Croatia Haussler underwent an arthroscopic surgery in Austria on December 31st 2016 to remove the synovial plica and patellar cartilage brushing. After the surgery he immediately began a program of functional recovery both with bike and swimming, physiotherapy and local therapies.
The training camp in Benidorm in January 2017 caused a significant slowdown of the recovery programme, so Haussler was visited by another orthopaedic specialist, who proposed a variant of the functional recovery program but confirmed the need of a rather long recovery time. Currently Haussler is undergoing physiotherapy with electric waves, localized shock waves and manual therapy.
“The same knee has been injured in the past”, Dr. Guardascione said. “All specialists that he has seen, including arthroscopic surgeon, with proposed therapies can’t give an exact date for his return. We will need to be patient and see how it will goes in the following weeks and how the knee reacts with the proposed therapies and adequate training program.”
Haussler said he still had problems with his knee.
"I am doing many different therapies, exercises and physio to try to resolve the problem so I can start racing again. It has been going on for many months now but I am doing everything possible to get back to a level where I can start racing again. I am back on bike at the moment and small steps have been made but I will still need some more time to heal 100%.”

Source : BNA