broke my arm - not for the squeamish

[vqdriver]

GRAPHIC

like an idiot i broke my arm playing paintball. broke right at the head of the radius just above my wrist.

surgery was yesterday. with the mess inside doc said he had a small chance of setting it externally with pins instead of opening it and installing a ti plate and screws. he managed to do it though which is a good thing. kinda bummed i don't get the ti goodies ;), but recovery will be much shorter this way.

first pic is the fracture without treatment. hard for me to tell, but the shaft of the bone apparently pushed up thru the head of it. imagine pushing the trunk of a mushroom thru the umbrella part of the mushroom. ugh. the cartilage in there is shredded. not sure what can be done about that.

last pic is during the operation with pins of course.

if all goes well, i should start pt in 4-6 weeks.
unsure if i'll be able to mtb like before (clumsily, not hardcore) or hold a road bar for hours. fingers crossed.

[kramnnim]

Ow. :(

Did you trip and fall and catch yourself with the arm, or...?

[vqdriver]

was sliding feet first (think baseball slide) into a bunker and landed too hard on my hand. was doing it all morning that day but this one time was just all wrong i guess.

[beeatnik]

Heal up VQ. A pal had a similar fracture (Montrose Ride) and was back on the bike in 6 weeks. Doesn't seem to complain too much about aftereffects as well.

[rnhood]

Keep it immobilized and take care of it. I hope it heals quickly and the pin approach should help with this. I know its a pain. A friend just broke his yesterday in an almost identical way, except he broke the radius bone, and being much younger he should heal fine. They will evaluate it on Monday and if things look Ok, he will go in a cast. Otherwise, I guess the pins come out and it will be screws and plate. Right now its a wait and see mode.

[MattTuck]

Sorry to hear... that sounds/looks painful.

Now you'll have more time to follow the waiver wire :)


Good luck this week :)

[vqdriver]

Sorry to hear... that sounds/looks painful.

Now you'll have more time to follow the waiver wire :)


Good luck this week :)

lol!!! :beer:

[DRZRM]

Man that sucks!! Take care and have a speedy recovery.

[dpk501]

That's the hard way of owning titanium!

[AngryScientist]

are you right handed?

what do you do for a living?

heal up quick!

[cdn_bacon]

Wishing you all the best :help:

[stansarch]

Might be obvious but take it real easy and don't rush riding outside or weight bearing riding or doing general daily things too soon with it. My buddy has a permanent curvature there due to not following this simple doctor order.
It might be tough to twist and bend at the wrist for a while after the bone heals due to atrophy and lack of use, but it'll all come back and you'll eventually forget it was ever broken. And don't be surprised if it takes longer than 6 weeks, sometimes these fractures start healing quick and then slow way down! :crap:

[buldogge]

Make sure you do the PT, no matter how hard/bad/boring/crappy it is...try to make sure they design it around the movements/actions that you use your hand for.

I shattered my wrist in multiple places in a motorcycle accident in '05 and, frankly, I wasn't very good about the PT...but...I went right back to doing the things that I do, every day (per my surgeon, against my PT)...so my hand worked well/fine for those things....race shifting a gear lever, riding a bike/motorcycle/scooter.

It was also my non-dominant hand, which was good.

Oh yeah...I did get the Ti plates/screws/thread and a carpal tunnel procedure for good measure while he was in there!

-Mark in St. Louis

[tumbler]

kinda bummed i don't get the ti goodies ;), but recovery will be much shorter this way.

You need to get something cool out of this. Call up Calfee and see what they charge for a custom carbon cast.

Speedy recovery :beer:

[buldogge]

I ended up with reduced flexibility in the wrist, bending inwards/palmside. The PT will have you bending/flexing it in VERY painful ways using band contraptions/etc. Do it!

-Mark

Might be obvious but take it real easy and don't rush riding outside or weight bearing riding or doing general daily things too soon with it. My buddy has a permanent curvature there due to not following this simple doctor order.
It might be tough to twist and bend at the wrist for a while after the bone heals due to atrophy and lack of use, but it'll all come back and you'll eventually forget it was ever broken. And don't be surprised if it takes longer than 6 weeks, sometimes these fractures start healing quick and then slow way down! :crap:

[cderalow]

I did something similar as a teen and opted for the internal titanium bits... that wrist's inability to break a 2nd time broke the corresponding collar bone 10 years later and resulted in more titanium bits...

[stansarch]

I did something similar as a teen and opted for the internal titanium bits... that wrist's inability to break a 2nd time broke the corresponding collar bone 10 years later and resulted in more titanium bits...

That's always been a concern of mine that I have wondered about. Sorry to hear that, but it is amazing how resilient the body (and it's future reinforcements) are!

[FlashUNC]

Well done. I got the full hardware set when I broke my elbow a couple years back. Docs told me then what was mentioned above -- anything other break will either be at the end of the plates, or some where else in the system. Because the plates and screws sure aren't breaking.

Hope they got you some good drugs.

[vqdriver]

thanks for the kind thoughts guys.
i'll definitely do the pt, boring as it may be.
its curiously pain free, but itchy as hell

[paredown]

Make sure you do the PT, no matter how hard/bad/boring/crappy it is...try to make sure they design it around the movements/actions that you use your hand for.


^^^^ This ^^^^^

PT will make all the difference with range of motion once it is healed enough to start.

I've done both wrists, although not as bad as yours.

Don't get cocky and start working it too hard once the pain subsides...

[GScot]

I'm just a few weeks ahead of you, got the other end of the radius and ulna from clumsy trip on a pallet then out of my truck bed. New radial head and plate on the ulna. Nice surgery but got infected, spent 6 weeks with a PICC line for antibiotics every 6 hours. 4 surgeries, last to bring new muscle into the infection area.

Started therapy the third time last week. Elbow has very limited motion and wrist rotation is limited. Felt good enough last weekend to enjoy Oktoberfest :beer:

I'm told 12-16 weeks to get most of the motion back and no bike until the elbow has near full flexibility. Avoid infection, the mechanical side of medicine is way ahead of the infection control depth. Gratuitous picture for the curious.

[jds108]

Bummer. I broke my radius at the elbow (actually bits of all three bones at the elbow broke). I've now got a rubber bumper where the end of my radius used to be.

All that I can tell you is that PT will be uncomfortable/painful but do as much as you can. If you get frustrated with your recovery a few months into it, just know that if your recovery is like mine you'll continue to heal for at least a couple of years.

I couldn't ride a bike for at least a year but now the old injury is a trivial annoyance when riding. (I lost one of the muscles in my forearm as the muscle attachment area was lost... thus the elbow isn't 100% as stable as pre-incident but it's pretty good)

Best of luck with the recovery!

[FlashUNC]

I'm just a few weeks ahead of you, got the other end of the radius and ulna from clumsy trip on a pallet then out of my truck bed. New radial head and plate on the ulna. Nice surgery but got infected, spent 6 weeks with a PICC line for antibiotics every 6 hours. 4 surgeries, last to bring new muscle into the infection area.

Started therapy the third time last week. Elbow has very limited motion and wrist rotation is limited. Felt good enough last weekend to enjoy Oktoberfest :beer:

I'm told 12-16 weeks to get most of the motion back and no bike until the elbow has near full flexibility. Avoid infection, the mechanical side of medicine is way ahead of the infection control depth. Gratuitous picture for the curious.

I think we got our equipment out of the same aisle at Home Depot.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8159/7107520533_0ca66494f2_c.jpg

[vqdriver]

wow, that's a lot of hardware in there. i thought mine was bad....

[AJosiahK]

Dang G sorry to hear ...

I broke my wrist one time. Freshman year if high school. Was a Great first day at try outs for varsity soccer. Knew I would make the team and play even.... Went for a MTB ride afterwards and went over my bars

I still love MTB :)

[GScot]

I missed out on the staples. After the infection they used old style nylon, had a nice train track for a while. Therapy can be a bit intense, fortunately I think my surgeon and therapist are aggressive in general and tell me the limit is your pain threshold. Caveat being if you aggravate it enough that it becomes tender you're going backwards. I was able to add resistance training today for existing motion.

[FlashUNC]

I missed out on the staples. After the infection they used old style nylon, had a nice train track for a while. Therapy can be a bit intense, fortunately I think my surgeon and therapist are aggressive in general and tell me the limit is your pain threshold. Caveat being if you aggravate it enough that it becomes tender you're going backwards. I was able to add resistance training today for existing motion.

You missed out on nothing. The staples were awful. In addition to the incision scar I've got a nice set of staple scars alongside it. Very frankenstein.

But yes, this 100%. Work as hard as you can in PT, but listen to the docs and the therapists. It'll take a long time to get back to what approximates normal. Celebrate the successes and don't get too down on the valleys and plateaus.

Really took about 9 months before I started to get back to something resembling normal.

[Vientomas]

Here's mine. Mountain bike over the bars. in early August. Heavy PT (stands for pain threshold) 3x's per week. Also received a puncture wound to the bone that caused an infection and hit my ulnar nerve. Numbness on the back of my hand and the back of the lower fingers.

Distal radius, proximal radial head and humerus.

This trail, just after the tree at about 55 seconds in is where I went down. Not my video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JICcONVtZR4

I'm 52, been riding mtb since the mid 80's, raced for a stint back in the day. Third break of this wrist, all mountain biking. I think I might stick to the road from now on.

[dgauthier]

(. . .) kinda bummed i don't get the ti goodies (. . .)

Don't be. The heads of the screws can be slightly painful to the skin when pressure is applied.

Your photos look cool, not bad at all. It looks like the doctor did a very nice job setting it. I hope you heal and feel better quickly! The body is amazing. The bones will join, the rough spots will smooth over, and the break will be undetectable in X-rays in a couple of years.

[vqdriver]

Good to hear

[oldpotatoe]

was sliding feet first (think baseball slide) into a bunker and landed too hard on my hand. was doing it all morning that day but this one time was just all wrong i guess.

Ouch. I've had pins in my thumb that stuck out of the skin. Be careful if they cast ya..that the cast doesn't rub on the ends of the pins..Got a new cast and had that happen. A more painful gig I haven't felt. Cut a 'window' in the cast-all OK..Heal quick.

[cderalow]

Don't be. The heads of the screws can be slightly painful to the skin when pressure is applied.

Your photos look cool, not bad at all. It looks like the doctor did a very nice job setting it. I hope you heal and feel better quickly! The body is amazing. The bones will join, the rough spots will smooth over, and the break will be undetectable in X-rays in a couple of years.

Worse is when/if they start migrating out.

I've had two that needed to be reset in my collarbone

PT is always better when the therapist is a hottie... makes you want to work harder.

FYI the places where bones break wind up with a different density than the surrounding bone and will always be visible on x-rays.

[JAllen]

Oy! Gnarly stuff there. Hope it heals nicely and you are able to make good use of the downtime.

[vqdriver]

ugh. had a follow up today to reassess.
hand surgeon this time. first surgery done by a general joints surgeon. (they're different it turns out)

seems it healed up short. they call it a malunion. i call it a deformity.
looks like surgery number two. ti plate and screws this time. but not terribly excited for it to be honest.

[Louis]

Yuck.

Are they going to have to break it again? (ouch)

[GScot]

ugh. had a follow up today to reassess.
hand surgeon this time. first surgery done by a general joints surgeon. (they're different it turns out)

seems it healed up short. they call it a malunion. i call it a deformity.
looks like surgery number two. ti plate and screws this time. but not terribly excited for it to be honest.

Yuck! That sucks big time. I was optimistic about my recovery having me half assedly back on a bike by now. Didn't work out here either. Despite working it obsessively with dynamic therapy and up to six hours per day in a static brace my range of motion stopped increasing about six weeks ago. Hand rotation, dexterity, and strength are good but the elbow is limited in flex and extension.

Looks like I'll be in good company as surgery number five is coming up dec 14. Best of luck with your next procedure. I bet the specialist can fix you right up.

[vqdriver]

Yuck! That sucks big time. I was optimistic about my recovery having me half assedly back on a bike by now. Didn't work out here either. Despite working it obsessively with dynamic therapy and up to six hours per day in a static brace my range of motion stopped increasing about six weeks ago. Hand rotation, dexterity, and strength are good but the elbow is limited in flex and extension.

Looks like I'll be in good company as surgery number five is coming up dec 14. Best of luck with your next procedure. I bet the specialist can fix you right up.

omg. number 5?!?!

i may bug out of this. it's optional, but if i do choose to do it, sooner is better. because, yes, they have to separate it again and put filler in there. i'm guessing bondo.

[Louis]

i may bug out of this. it's optional, but if i do choose to do it, sooner is better. because, yes, they have to separate it again and put filler in there. i'm guessing bondo.

What's the down side of not doing it?

[vqdriver]

the way it healed, there is pain at the limits of range with a blindingly searing pain that shoots at random when i bump it on something or throw a ball. will diminish with time, and 'probably' will go away completely over the next 6-9 months. probably....
that's function.
cosmetically, my hand is sorta off center. that bugs me, but i'd probably forget about it if the pain didn't keep drawing attention to the wrist.

[Louis]

So if the recovery time for surgery #2 is no worse than 6-9 months, there may be no significant down side to trying again. I guess you have to trust the experts for this sort of decision. I agree that if the only issue were cosmetic, it probably wouldn't be worth a second shot, but if both form and function are off, then I'd have to think long and hard about #2.

[R3awak3n]

yeah I would trust the doctor and do whatever he says.

I broke my ankle about a year ago, had to have 2 surgeries (there was no option, it was a pretty bad break). Was on crutches for a good 3 months and it was aweful. At least it was winter and you should think that way too.

Keep ya head up, sometimes things take a while to heal. About a few months ago my ankle still hurt pretty much everyday, it had been 9 months or so and I felt maybe 80% and was worried. What a different a couple more months makes, I feel maybe 95% right now, rarely any pain, never pain on the bike.

Good luck!

[FlashUNC]

I'd listen to the specialist personally, especially if you're getting random pain.

Biggest concern my surgeon had when it came to my elbow was infection more than anything else. Sounds like if you're seeing a solid specialist, he'll be able to fix what ails you.

[GScot]

omg. number 5?!?!

i may bug out of this. it's optional, but if i do choose to do it, sooner is better. because, yes, they have to separate it again and put filler in there. i'm guessing bondo.

Only surgery 1 dealt with the joint. 2-4 were infection related. There is a hard stop as I extend the arm at 130 Degrees. Scar tissue is the cause after blowing up the elbow, then surgery, and therapy delays due to infection and not healing. With some luck the plate can come out too. Good luck with either course you choose, I'm eager to be chopped on again despite the nasty infection.