Goes for most injuries, in western medicine there has been an unfortunate tendency to fixate injuries from my experience. That just teaches the body to route around it, as it's seemingly not used anymore. Just lying still in a hospital bed for a few weeks is a terrible experience once you start moving again, been there done that.
Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
81–90 of 342 posts
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone can RICE their joints. It's foolproof, more or less objective and requires no monitoring from a professional. What defines optimal load? It sounds impossible to gauge, unless maybe if you're working with a physical therapist. Then, what happens if load more than the optimal level? Is the outcome worse than if you just stuck to RICE? I think these are things that have to be considered for medical protocols.
Optimal load is right before it starts hurting. You progressively load, and when it starts hurting you unload. Your body will send pain before there is damage to be done. Edit: in fact some discomfort or right kind of pain is good. Else you give to atrophy.
Your edit shows that there is no good rule for the threshold where pain would indicate too much load vs. still being in the beneficial range. We don’t even have a good way to assess subjective pain (one’s 3 is another one’s 7, etc.). “Optimal load” is really just a tautology.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean considered per patient . Pro wrestler Kerry von Erich had to get his broken foot amputated because he thought it felt good enough to walk across the room to get a cheeseburger. Not everyone can gauge these things on their own, especially considering people with broken bones may be taking pain killers. Not everyone can have professionals, or even loved ones, around them to monitor it.
> Pro wrestler Kerry von Erich had to get his broken foot amputated because he thought it felt good enough to walk across the room to get a cheeseburger. Honestly, I don't think wrestlers -- certainly those from the von Erich era -- are beacons of authority when it comes to sensible recuperation/rehabilitation from injury. Kevin von Erich said it was due to his brother trying to get some food but there are other acco…
Maybe they aren't, but they also aren't unique in this regard. Obstinate tough guy types are obstinate no matter what their job is. I have neighbors and family members who had similar issues where the doctor says something like "you can walk, but take it easy" but they misjudge what "taking it easy" really means.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#84The pathology for broken collar bones was changing right as I took up mountain biking, and subsequently shattered my collarbone. It was hotly debated at the hospital, if my specific case should be operated on or not. Each time I had a checkup, one doctor would say "wait and see" while the other was saying "I can't believe we didn't operate on this". At any rate, the outcome was as good as if they had operated on it,…
I had a broken collar bone last year in Bucharest and I moved back to my hometown because of it. I had to check in after a week or two to see how it's healing but was lazy about it so I went to the hospital after 3 weeks and was told there's a waiting list 10 days long and go to a private clinic. At the private clinic the doctor didn't even look at me, or the x-rays I just took and just told me to go into surgery back in Bucharest. Luckily when my mother heard she found a surgeon through a friend of a friend that looked at my x-rays on whatsapp and told me it's fine but just to be sure to visit him in Bucharest feel it in person, which the private care doctor never did.
So after 4 weeks I went to this last guy in a public hospital, told me I'm fine and can take off my brace, wait a week or two and go into physical therapy. Also told me in 20 years he only had to once or twice do a collar bone surgery so it's almost never the answer.
It's amazing that just being told I'm fine I could relax and all my muscle aches literally were gone 1 hour after that meeting so my advice in general is, be very careful what doctor you choose because medical hexing really is a thing. We put doctors on this pedestal and if God forbid you catch them in a bad mood they can fuck you up worse than before you saw them.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean considered per patient . Pro wrestler Kerry von Erich had to get his broken foot amputated because he thought it felt good enough to walk across the room to get a cheeseburger. Not everyone can gauge these things on their own, especially considering people with broken bones may be taking pain killers. Not everyone can have professionals, or even loved ones, around them to monitor it.
I mean so we don't make a generally good recommendation because one pro wrestler got their foot amputated? The fact that general medical guidance isn't tailored to you shouldn't come as a surprise. Whether you take it or not is up to you.
I mean so we don't make a generally good recommendation because one pro wrestler got their foot amputated?
Please try to converse in good faith.
The fact that general medical guidance isn't tailored to you shouldn't come as a surprise.
In general, doctors treat people, not ailments.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suffered a very similar break playing soccer. ER surgeon asked if I fell off a roof. 3 metal plates and 15 screws later I was non-weight bearing for 14 weeks. I lost almost 5 inches in circumference from my left thigh while waiting to put weight back on that leg. My post-break recovery has not been as good as yours sounds. Almost 3 years later and I rate my ankle at 75% of what its sibling is capable of. I had foll…
I wonder how and when they choose to remove plates, vs. leaving them in. They left mine in, and when I originally asked them, they mentioned that there was significantly more risk in removing it than leaving it in. 20 years on, and it's still hanging in there.
I asked to have them removed because my physical therapist believed they were impinging on a nerve, preventing me from regaining mobility in my toes. They didn’t want to but I kept insisting.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#87I broke the bone that runs along the top of your left foot when I was around 20 (Metatarsal Bone?), about 25 years ago.
Being a stupid youngun, I didn't go to the doctor, thinking that it was just a really bad sprain, and I could "walk it off".
It really really hurt but I tried to walk (even run) normally on it, and gradually over months the pain subsided until maybe 6 months later it was "normal".
Except, maybe 10 years later I noticed that I couldn't balance on my left foot as well as on the right, and see that the top of my foot is noticeably less convex (not quite concave though). Probably less structure for muscles and tendons to use for stability. But feels fine and I can walk and run okay :D
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suffered a very similar break playing soccer. ER surgeon asked if I fell off a roof. 3 metal plates and 15 screws later I was non-weight bearing for 14 weeks. I lost almost 5 inches in circumference from my left thigh while waiting to put weight back on that leg. My post-break recovery has not been as good as yours sounds. Almost 3 years later and I rate my ankle at 75% of what its sibling is capable of. I had foll…
Sorry to hear about the outcome on your leg, I am sure you've tried lots of things to beef up your muscle. Just looking at my two legs I can still see a slight difference in calf thickness. One thing I didn't appreciate is that in a break the bone is the easy part, but getting the muscle back or preserving it is the hard part.
For sure! Not to mention all the tendons and nerves. My recovery continues, as I’m sure yours does too — I’m back to my pre-injury PRs for most weight lifting, and my goal for this year is to match my pre-injury mile time.
All things considered I’m still pretty lucky. This could have happened when I’m much older and been debilitating for life.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#89Maybe the people who walk early on it doesn't have any pain when they do, which bias the results as it's obviously select for not as bad of an injury.
I broke my ankle a few months ago. I read similar papers online about early walking on it. Well, if you feel any pain, don't. It's easy to undo weeks of healing by doing a bad move.
Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suffered a very similar break playing soccer. ER surgeon asked if I fell off a roof. 3 metal plates and 15 screws later I was non-weight bearing for 14 weeks. I lost almost 5 inches in circumference from my left thigh while waiting to put weight back on that leg. My post-break recovery has not been as good as yours sounds. Almost 3 years later and I rate my ankle at 75% of what its sibling is capable of. I had foll…
What's your leg circumference at, now? Mine is also smaller, due to patella tendinopathy.
They are within 1 inch of each other, which is fine with me. I haven’t measured in over a year, I know there’s still a strength imbalance but that’s not what feels limiting to me anymore.