broken clavicle...surgery or not?
- Thread starter James Thomas
- Start date
Injury update:
Here is my X-ray after 1 month of the surgery. What do you think? I can't see the bones actually fusing, what is known as the "callus". But the doctor told me that it actually is there. She told me that everything is going ok and she allows me to exercise with some weight to progressively gain muscular mass. I can do everything from swimming to gym as far as there is no impact movevements or vibrations. That is, no mountain bike yet, maybe light cross-country or road cycle but not enduro or Downhill at least in 4 months.
What do you think? It has been 1 month since the surgery and I have to wait another 4 months to ride enduro or Downhill...
( I feel really well, no pain at all. I know people who in two months are perfectly skying, riding downhill, fallling, etc with the plate with no problem whatsoever. Sometimes I think that the doctors are too conservative. Do they really understand us, the riders? We DO NEED to train, it is part of our lives.
Hope to see your thoughts.
Here is my X-ray after 1 month of the surgery. What do you think? I can't see the bones actually fusing, what is known as the "callus". But the doctor told me that it actually is there. She told me that everything is going ok and she allows me to exercise with some weight to progressively gain muscular mass. I can do everything from swimming to gym as far as there is no impact movevements or vibrations. That is, no mountain bike yet, maybe light cross-country or road cycle but not enduro or Downhill at least in 4 months.
What do you think? It has been 1 month since the surgery and I have to wait another 4 months to ride enduro or Downhill...
( I feel really well, no pain at all. I know people who in two months are perfectly skying, riding downhill, fallling, etc with the plate with no problem whatsoever. Sometimes I think that the doctors are too conservative. Do they really understand us, the riders? We DO NEED to train, it is part of our lives.Hope to see your thoughts.
All of these posts are very interesting to read. Especially about the plates breaking. So I'm in the same boat right now. June 12, 2011 broke my left clavicle in 4 places. Second opinion ortho surgeon suggested surgery ad I had agreed. This was a pretty think plate with 7 holes and they used 6 screws. Placed it on the front side of my clavicle. I played on 5 volleyball leagues and did title boxing while this plate was in place just dealing with the pain. This plate cause a few mobility issues and pain so a year and a half later I opted to have it taken out, based on the doctor stating that all was healed. After this surgery on Oct 10, 2012 the Doc tells me that after pulling the plate off there was a small hirline fracture still there from the original main break. He said becareful and it should heal. Well the Monday after surgery on Oct 15th I was walking my dog and a spider fell on me. I swung my arms around and snapped the fracture line in two. My Doc said it was a non-union and he could tell this by the way the ends of the bones were curved and healed and not jagged. I had a new smaller and thinner plate put in with 5 screws on Halloween Oct 31, 2012 and went to the Doc today for extreme pain. The plate has broken in half around the center compression screw and the bone is obviously still not healed. This is exactly 8 weeks after having this thinner plate put in. That seems to be the record of these threads on broken plates. Now the Doc wants to do a bone graph from my hip! I'm not to sure about this. I will be going tomorrow for another opinion before scheduling with this surgeon again. Not to mention his bed side manner is less than professional.
Any advice? Same Doc, three surgeries, now another one... Bone graph... SCARED!
Any advice? Same Doc, three surgeries, now another one... Bone graph... SCARED!
Hi Cutty,
It sounds like you're going too hard on yourself after these surgeries. Also some bad luck I guess but you really need to let that thing heal up after you go under the knife. How soon did you get into the volleyball and boxing? Obviously those seem like intense activities for the arms/shoulders. My best advice would be to learn from this experience and go super easy on it next time around. This is why a lot of these guys are waiting the full 3 months as doctors suggest before getting into sports. Light training/cardio to stay in shape beforehand is what I would recommend.
Best of luck!
B
Mitteg,Originally Posted by mitteg .
Injury update:
Here is my X-ray after 1 month of the surgery. What do you think? I can't see the bones actually fusing, what is known as the "callus". But the doctor told me that it actually is there. She told me that everything is going ok and she allows me to exercise with some weight to progressively gain muscular mass. I can do everything from swimming to gym as far as there is no impact movevements or vibrations. That is, no mountain bike yet, maybe light cross-country or road cycle but not enduro or Downhill at least in 4 months.
What do you think? It has been 1 month since the surgery and I have to wait another 4 months to ride enduro or Downhill...
Hope to see your thoughts.
Your plate looks very clean and it looks like it's going to heal very straight. Just read Cutty's last post that I replied to and I think you will realize how smart it is to wait it out. You can run into a lot of trouble if you break that thing inside you. Stay in shape, swim, run, ride casually, but I would say to give it a few months before you start going really hard again.
Awesome to hear you are pain free and feeling great though!
B
your calendar seems about rite to me, i hope all goes well for you
and remember, when you are ready to ride again, don't go unless someone is with you. even the easy trails can be dangeorus.
my plate is staying in me, there is now way i'm having surgery again.
quick sumery on me:
week 0: crash, 4 larger pieces and 3 smaller fragments.
7 days later: surgery. fragments removed, 1 piece of bone was too small too screw so they just put it in place. (nothing else they can do with it)
2 weeks post surgery: check up, not much change so carry on with lite pendualum exersises.
week 8: 2nd check up. found out a mix up with names and addresses (not just mine) delayed getting physio. as a result, i got the frozen shoulder. x-ray showed small piece of bone has moved slightly but not enough to worry the doc. started physio.
week 14: check up, small piece of bone now complaetly out of place, meaning I have a chunk missing out of my collar bone. now the 2 physio's and 2 other docs say that getting frozen shoulder in my case was a good thing, and i do agree with them. they also said the small piece of bone will be absorbed.
presant day: all is going well, physio is pleased with my progress.
Hi screwed,
Fortunately my collarbone brake was right in the middle. Sorry to hear your experience about small pieces of bone moving. Happy to see that you finally seem to be healthy now and healing as expected. Reading those posts I realize that even though all of us suffered from broken collarbones, every injury is VERY different and the recovery times vary a lot.
I would say that the best advice is to stay as fit as possible during the recovery: physio, gym, swim, walk and eat healthy food. As for myself I'm going to the swimming pool every single day except sundays and every day I see my progress. The first day I wasn't able to even swim breaststroke and two weeks later I swim as if no injury happened. Yesterday I tried to swim crawl and it is a bit more difficult but every day improving.
Keep on the training!
Fortunately my collarbone brake was right in the middle. Sorry to hear your experience about small pieces of bone moving. Happy to see that you finally seem to be healthy now and healing as expected. Reading those posts I realize that even though all of us suffered from broken collarbones, every injury is VERY different and the recovery times vary a lot.
I would say that the best advice is to stay as fit as possible during the recovery: physio, gym, swim, walk and eat healthy food. As for myself I'm going to the swimming pool every single day except sundays and every day I see my progress. The first day I wasn't able to even swim breaststroke and two weeks later I swim as if no injury happened. Yesterday I tried to swim crawl and it is a bit more difficult but every day improving.
Keep on the training!
Originally Posted by screwed .
your calendar seems about rite to me, i hope all goes well for you
and remember, when you are ready to ride again, don't go unless someone is with you. even the easy trails can be dangeorus.
my plate is staying in me, there is now way i'm having surgery again.
quick sumery on me:
week 0: crash, 4 larger pieces and 3 smaller fragments.
7 days later: surgery. fragments removed, 1 piece of bone was too small too screw so they just put it in place. (nothing else they can do with it)
2 weeks post surgery: check up, not much change so carry on with lite pendualum exersises.
week 8: 2nd check up. found out a mix up with names and addresses (not just mine) delayed getting physio. as a result, i got the frozen shoulder. x-ray showed small piece of bone has moved slightly but not enough to worry the doc. started physio.
week 14: check up, small piece of bone now complaetly out of place, meaning I have a chunk missing out of my collar bone. now the 2 physio's and 2 other docs say that getting frozen shoulder in my case was a good thing, and i do agree with them. they also said the small piece of bone will be absorbed.
presant day: all is going well, physio is pleased with my progress.
A minimum of 8 months. I think it depends on how fast your bones fuse. I have been told several times that in 4 months, the bones are 100% fused so I do not undestand why the Doctors prefer to wait so long. Age plays a important role here. The younger the better. I know first hand a boy who is 17 years of age that he was removed the plate two months since the surgery. I guess it is a special case, but again, every person is diferent.
I totally agree, every one heals diffidently. and yes plenty of exercise is a must. I never even new about the piece of bone until I saw the xray, I can't feel it at all. its just as well i didn't start physio earlier, who know what could of would of happened with a gap in my collar bone.
I don't go to the pool much because my nearest one is all ways packed, so I gave up on that and thought I should try one of the pools at a health spa somewhere, although it costs allot more the normal pool, I went to give it a go.
now, I'm not the sort of guy that can relax, (hence the downhill mtb, free running, rock climbing, all ways living in the moment) I can safely say, IT WAS ABSOLUTE BLISS!!! I was not expecting it to actually be enjoyable. recommend to anyone.
Screwed, glad to see you're always looking at the bright side.
As for myself, I did my first 1000m in the pool without pain at all. Seems like hard training is paying off. So stoked!!
Moreover, today I did harder exercises with my physio, wide arm movements with resistance. I ended up exhausted but he thinks that I'm on the good direction. Riding bikes seems closer everyday /img/vbsmilies/smilies/drool.gif
As for myself, I did my first 1000m in the pool without pain at all. Seems like hard training is paying off. So stoked!!
Moreover, today I did harder exercises with my physio, wide arm movements with resistance. I ended up exhausted but he thinks that I'm on the good direction. Riding bikes seems closer everyday /img/vbsmilies/smilies/drool.gif
thanks! and my hand is much better now, exept for the thumb which is still having problems. but like you said, time and patience is all it takes. I still cant do my job properly, so I'v decided to stop doing it and get a nice simple easy to do job to see me through.
well I don't drive, but I was about to start learning e few weeks before the crash :-(
what kind of job do you guys have? how long were you unable to do it for?
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