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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

#311

Post by ngd »

criddell wrote: post #300
flocciput wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old were you?

Great point! A couple of weeks ago I went over the handlebars on my bicycle and broke my collarbone, needed 5 stitches on my forehead, got a little road rash on my hip, and an avulsion (?) fracture on one finger resulting in mallet finger. I'm 54 and have noticed that I'm healing much more slowly than I remember healing when I was a teenager. Mostly, things are going smoothly and the only thing I'm really worried abo…

Sorry to say I'm in almost an identical seat. I broke my thumb and have a gnarly but closed tuft fracture - after 4 weeks I saw a specialist who said there wasn't much healing or bone growth yet, and so decided to do a more aggressive splinting and lock down the whole thumb for another 4 weeks.

Oddly enough I had a similar injury 10 years prior on a different finger and that healed up in 6 weeks as if nothing ever happened to it.

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

#312

Post by 77pt77 »

TomK32 wrote: post #76
clumsysmurf wrote: post #2

It was ~20 years ago, so my memory is a little foggy, but I gave myself a "dancer's fracture" in one foot. After many months, it was looking like a non-union. The podiatrist was worried any pin would split the broken bone even more. It wasn't looking good. I had read something along these lines even back then, so with my crazy immobilizer boot on, I head to the gym and started doing light squats several times per wee…

Those little bones are fragile... I broke the second from the outside last summer, too much running, and then started running again a little bit too soon and the next one broke :-/

But plenty of people here are saying to just force it...

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

#313

Post by 77pt77 »

sethammons wrote: post #157
clumsysmurf wrote: post #2

It was ~20 years ago, so my memory is a little foggy, but I gave myself a "dancer's fracture" in one foot. After many months, it was looking like a non-union. The podiatrist was worried any pin would split the broken bone even more. It wasn't looking good. I had read something along these lines even back then, so with my crazy immobilizer boot on, I head to the gym and started doing light squats several times per wee…

I dropped a few hundred lbs on my foot and got my ballerina's fracture. I like "dancer's" better haha. I went to the gym 4 times a week, every week, even in the boot. Just did mostly sitting exercises. It took 4 or 5 months to start to fuse still. :shrug:

> It took 4 or 5 months to start to fuse

That's an insanely long time-frame for healing.

Bones usually start fusing in weeks, not months.

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

#314

Post by PoignardAzur »

lennxa wrote: post #253
notShabu wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of this increased healing rate would be the tail risk of compounding injury though. It's not something a doctor could recommend even if it were true for everyone consistently.

if it were true for everyone consistently (faster better healing), where does the tail risk come from?

You fall and break something.

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

#315

Post by jacksnipe »

potamic wrote: post #233
jacksnipe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in PT and dealing with orthos right now, and according to them, that IS how pain works for the vast majority of ortho injuries

Sorry, which comment are you affirming?

Go until just before it hurts, which is a moving target that you will have to calibrate carefully

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

#316

Post by devilbunny »

theultdev wrote: post #307
devilbunny wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but given the huge variations in pain tolerance, some will reinjure it while others will never use it again.

tolerating it doesn't mean you can't detect it. no amount of pain tolerance will help you if something is broken. you WILL feel it. simply stop when you do. it's not a hard thing to grasp.

Clearly, you have never worked in healthcare.

Sleeve tattoos but needs an IV? “Oh, I’m not good with needles, you need to sedate me first.”

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

#317

Post by theultdev »

devilbunny wrote: post #316
theultdev wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tolerating it doesn't mean you can't detect it. no amount of pain tolerance will help you if something is broken. you WILL feel it. simply stop when you do. it's not a hard thing to grasp.

Clearly, you have never worked in healthcare. Sleeve tattoos but needs an IV? “Oh, I’m not good with needles, you need to sedate me first.”

How is that relevant?

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

#318

Post by reaperman »

thoughtpalette wrote: post #296
stouset wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had shoulder surgery last May. My surgeon told me no combat sports (BJJ, judo) for six months minimum. I was 40 at the time. I went back on the mats a week later. Started with only doing warmups and movement drills, worked up to gentle flow rolling (with my arm tied into my belt) at a month, then drilling techniques with well-chosen partners and conservatively rolling with those same partners at two months. This wa…

That's honestly wild to me. I had arthroscopic labrum tear surgery on both my shoulders (1 in 2024, 1 in 2023), and I can't imagine going back to really any range of movement within a week. Even on my solid PT schedule. Glad it worked out for you but I would hesitate to expose yourself to any sort of risk at that stage. For me it took about 4 months to feel pretty comfortable with the shoulder(s) and about 6-12 month…

Also note that very nearly everyone practicing BJJ past 35 is taking exogenous testosterone. Without additional testosterone, it would be very difficult to sustain the sport due to frequent small injuries - the extra/"replacement" hormones help speed up recovery and actually allow frequent (>1x/week) training sessions.

It depends on the details of the surgery, but this may have helped GP heal a bit faster.

While testosterone is not well-known for helping to heal ligaments/tendons, some HRT compounds (such as nandrolone) that are occasionally prescribed by doctors/urologists, have a lot of anecdotal accounts of reducing perceived joint pain.

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

#319

Post by solarmist »

rodary wrote: post #212

Anecdotal but... Broke my femur neck on a mountain bike. Surgery, plates and screws. Surgeon said no weight on the broken bone for 8 weeks and no walking on it for 12. And then we'll see he said. In 4 weeks I was on a trainer (fork fixed to the trainer). Started easy with 30min sessions and then increased time and force applied to the pedals. After 2 weeks of "riding", started putting weight on the bone with short wa…

This has been knowledge for the top orthopedic surgeons for decades (at least 20 years). But for your local orthopedic surgeon, it depends on when they graduated whether they know this or not.

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

#320

Post by cryptonector »

What doesn't heal better when you use it?

Didn't we learn this when that Australian nurse invented physical therapy for treating children with polio in the 1920s? (It took decades for consensus to form that PT was better than immobilization for polio.)

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