But ICE is your friend, but not too much. The more you ice it on schedule, the better, but don't over ice it. Seriously, the quicker that swelling goes down, the better your pain will be. As you rehab, the PT will usually ice you at the end, but still ice it later that night, even if you don't think you need it.

You can find knee braces that have ice inserts and those have worked well for me over the years. Don't get talked into a water version, those aren't as good.

PT for my ACL was sadistic on the best days. Pay attention to the amount of attention the actual PTer gives you. If you find consistantly find yourself done with exercises and nobody notices, that's just wasting time. There was a knee replacement guy doing PT the same time as me and we were basically doing the same things, although I think my progression went faster, but I was 20 years younger than him. Mine took 3 months of PT, 3 times a week at $25 a pop.