The unhappy triad is a major injury that can happen to a knee. It usually happens in contact sports or even motor vehicle accidents.

The unhappy triad is when a sideways force on the knee can rupture the medial collateral ligament as well as the medial and lateral meniscus as well as the anterior crucial ligament, which all stabilizes the knee joint here.

Some of the symptoms that you may feel with the unhappy triad include – you may hear a pop when the injury occurred. There could be lots of pain and swelling, maybe difficulty to straighten or bending your leg. Your knee might feel quite unstable.

Treatment usually involves the surgical intervention of the ACL and the meniscus. Usually the MCL involves non-operative treatment.

After surgery you will have to go through a rehabilitation process as well as physical therapy.

One of the things that we do is to prescribe you a knee brace that will be helpful for you to get to back to activities of daily living, also help you go through your rehabilitation with increasing strength, increasing range of motion, and also increasing function so you get back to your everyday activity as soon as you can.