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Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#91

Post by nsbk »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #65
nsbk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going through a very similar process after breaking my ankle in a motorcycle accident. Tibia and double fibula fracture with dislocation and open wound, an ugly one which needed 2 titanium plates and 18 screws. I was out of my plaster after week 2 so that I could start moving the ankle, and started physical therapy on week 5. I'm currently on week 7 and have already started _walking_ with the "moon boot". I can s…

I also broke my ankle about 20 years ago. Once I was out of the cast, I regained all function, and only recently has my ankle been starting to ache. The doctor I saw about it even commented that it was as clean of a fix as he'd ever seen! I also didn't do much physio, but that was mostly due to me being a 23 year old moron (which, believe it or not, also had a lot to do with me breaking my ankle in the first place!)

I can relate, 21 year old moron in my case. No surgery needed and clean fix. The problems were gone after a year when I decided to get some help in the form physical therapy. It never hurt again until recently when I broke it again

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#92

Post by layer8 »

grayhatter wrote: post #78
layer8 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that a ban doesn’t make sense, but even “ephemeral” injuries routinely generate significant costs. (In my experience, musculoskeletal injuries are rarely completely ephemeral, they tend to have long-term effects, even if minor.)

I'm gonna call that sample bias. If you exclude all injuries that are ephemeral, (because they don't get reported, because they're ephemeral, and forgotten), you're left with the injuries that aren't ephemeral. I mean duh, obviously lol. But my point is still, yes injuries are bad, and as a society, we're pretty trash at healing them, but injuries are more impactful for the individual, than for society. And bonus poi…

My point is, most injuries aren’t ephemeral in the sense that your body would end up as if you didn’t have the injury in the first place. In particular the sports injuries we are talking about. You may only truly realize that a decade later or so. So I find making that distinction questionable, it trivializes the injuries.

As I said, I agree that bans don’t make sense. But the costs are real, and therefore one should take care to avoid injuries instead of trivializing them.

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#93

Post by windward »

faitswulff wrote: post #6

If anyone's heard of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) for healing joints, the new guidance is called POLICE: Protect, Optimal Load, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. The key differences being Protect and Optimal Load, meaning don't re-injure it and expose it to some level of weight-bearing or usage.

We're still icing and elevating? I've always felt dubious about our attempts to rectify our bodies evolving inflammation. It doesn't seem like any great evil to let the body part get more blood, signals to stop us using it, and a lower range of movement.

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#94

Post by [deleted] »

edwcross wrote: post #20
ehnto wrote: post #3

The 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,…

Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society activities", like trampolines.

[deleted]

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#95

Post by DennisP »

Couple decades ago I split my femur in half. Docs put a metal rod down the middle and had the PTs getting me on my feet the next day. It was not pleasant. After a couple days they sent me to a rehab facility for a week, then home with a walker which they replaced with a cane as soon as I was stable enough.

It took a while but I fully recovered. I'm not sure how relevant this is since the metal bore a lot of the load; I'm a little worried that may cause me problems eventually.

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#97

Post by WithinReason »

TomK32 wrote: post #57
WithinReason wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

source?

https://theros.org.uk/information-and-support/bone-health/ex...

That page directly contradicts you since it lists weight lifting exercises like barbell squats

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#98

Post by brunoTbear »

trollied wrote: post #69

I had a Brostrum procedure to fix my ankle. I researched lots before. Was expecting months in plaster. The surgeon bandaged it and gave me an inflatable shoe. After 2 weeks I was allowed to walk on it. I’m pleased he was progressive!

Same! Big shoutout to Dr Thuillier at UCSF. Really changed my life.

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#99

Post by Fricken »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #53
Daneel_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? I’ve been mountain biking for over 20 years and never any broken bones or had to go to hospital as a result, despite doing downhill, trials, and dirt jumping. And I have 20 years of fitness to show for it - that’s about as positive as it gets.

Get 8 billion people to flip a coin 30 times in a row, and one is likely to get heads 30 times in a row. It means nothing.

He's been flipping the same coin for 20 years and it has never come up tails. That's quite the coin. There is no data set more relevant to a person than their own experience.

Meanwhile I don't have enough fingers and toes to count up all the people I've known personally who have been killed or crippled in auto collisions.

Re: Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

#100

Post by DebtDeflation »

TomK32 wrote: post #32

Oh this is so bad: > In the 19th century German surgeon and anatomist Julius Wolff recognized that healthy bones adapt and change in response to the load placed on them. That is why everyone—but especially women, who are more susceptible than men to osteoporosis—should lift weights as they age No, weight lifting won't improve bone density, it's running that will edit: https://theros.org.uk/information-and-support/bon…

I have some books translated from Russian that that I acquired back in my powerlifting days and that showed studies the Russians did on Olympic weightlifters. The children (who had been lifting heavy since a very young age) had bone mineral densities far higher than average untrained adults. The adult Olympic weight lifters had bone mineral densities that were completely off the scale, as the book put it "in polar bear territory". Granted, these study participants were people explosively lifting hundreds of pounds from floor to overhead in the blink of an eye, not your average gymbro, but still.
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