Can’t fully bend, pre-OP.

Hi guys, I’ve been roughly hovering about the sub reddit and it’s interesting to see how different everyone’s situation can be.

As the name suggests, I cannot fully bend my knee to the point where I used to rest my bum on my ankles, it becomes quite painful around halfway, is this due to swelling? I’m not sure, my knee doesn’t look very swollen, maybe slightly, I’m unsure.

I hurt my knee playing soccer (33m), it felt like a freak accident as I’ve never had any issues on that knee before. Was just a little unfit when I joined club training.

I am pre-habbing to the best of my ability but I tried going for a jog and started feeling sharp pains on the lateral side of my knee and not being able to flex my knee like before is really dis heartening. (No meniscus damage apparently).

Is it common to lose complete flexion from just an acl tear and will I regain it back post surgery?

Edit: just fyi, I have full extension of my knee. When I’m talking about knee flexion I’m talking about the anatomical meaning which the the closing of distance between 2 joints. Not “flexing” my quads, I refer to that as extending my knee. Just adding for clarification :)

Thanks in advance