Ankle Breaks: Recovery, Prevention, and Types of Fractures

[Greg Freeman]

Be careful, I was told a cast was optional and it healed crooked without a cast and the muscles look and feel pulled and it's causing quite a bit of pain, more than when I first broke it.

I still can't figure out how things like that can be messed up, but I'm used to seeing engineered structures. Can't they measure to make sure it's straight?

And I can't see how someone with enough education to be a surgeon can make enough of a mess so that someone has to go back and clean up the mess with another surgery, delaying recovery additional weeks, not be mention making rehabilitation more difficult because my muscles have had more time to atrophy. Ugh. When they had my cast off today I felt my calf and it felt like jello compared to my functioning calf. Imagining trying to walk with that two months more after my surgery was painful. But I know other people definitely have worse situations.

 

[chemisttree]

Be careful, I was told a cast was optional and it healed crooked without a cast and the muscles look and feel pulled and it's causing quite a bit of pain, more than when I first broke it.

What type of break did you suffer? Mine was a radial head fracture. The doc said to start range of motion exercise as soon as possible (I waited 2 weeks). I've got most of the range back but the pain is still there at the extremes of my range of motion. My pain level is much less than when I first injured it (but I still cry manly tears... so what, I can't be president?) but a day of heavy typing really zings it!

Greg, will the screws and plate prevent you from having an MRI on your lower extremities?

 

[Greg Freeman]

Greg, will the screws and plate prevent you from having an MRI on your lower extremities?

From what I know, surgical (stainless) steel doesn't have good magnetic properties. I think I remember fooling around with stainless and having a hard time getting permanent magnets to hold onto it. I did a quick google check and got this:

Dr. Shellock has also examined the movement/deflection of selected orthopaedic implants in a 3.0 Tesla MRI unit and found that devices fabricated from cobalt, titanium and stainless steel exhibited little or no movement/deflection

http://www.zimmer.com/z/ctl/op/global/action/1/id/9153/template/MP/navid/582

So I don't think it will be an issue. I've heard that accidental or unknown slivers of metals (from welding and machining) can be very dangerous, especially if they are in sensitive areas like the eye. Not stainless, though.

 

[Evo]

What type of break did you suffer? Mine was a radial head fracture.

Mine separated the bones at the elbow and also a fracture straight across the ulna where it goes up.

See the picture of the bent elbow? If you take that bottom white line of 2 and run it straight across instead of curving up, the ulna fracture was there.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...lna&start=20&ndsp=20&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&sa=N

When I try to hold my arm out straight it looks like this ^ instead of -, it's like the wing of a bird bent in flight.