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It’s not exactly an epidemic, but why are so many teenage girls walking around wearing knee braces?

At a sports clinic in Tomball, three teenagers sat knees-to-knees-to-knees and talked about their knees.

“I was sprinting really fast and made too sharp of a turn,” Molly Whitted said.

“I tore a ligament and had to have it surgically repaired,” Brittany Lane said.

They showed us the scars from where surgeons did their work: multiple knee operations to repair a ligament called the ACL, and these girls have found they’re not alone.

A big reason for all of the knee injuries is soccer. The number of girls playing soccer has nearly tripled in the last 10 years — more girls playing, more getting injured.

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A big reason for all of the knee injuries is soccer. The number of girls playing soccer has nearly tripled in the last 10 years; more girls playing, more getting injured.

A recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that compared to boy players, girls injured their ankles and knees more often and that the rate for those injuries is on the rise.

Why more girls than boys?

Orthopedic surgeon Matt Hammit said it’s under study, but girls are built differently, run differently and maybe that strains the knee more.

What’s better known is the connection between untreated knee injuries and arthritis later in life.

“And it may not be arthritis they get in their 70s and 80s, but arthritis they get in their 30s and 40s,” Dr. Hammit said.

To recover and play soccer again means months of feel-the-burn therapy.

The risk of re-injury is real, so is it worth it to continue playing?

Don’t even go there.

“I’ve been playing soccer since I was 4,” Whitted said. “It’s always been my dream; I want to play in college, cause I can’t imagine myself not playing soccer.”

A dream that even serious injury can’t shatter.