Broken Wrist

[NickiT]

I attended the adult clinic in Nottingham over the weekend and took a nasty fall backwards onto my left wrist. It happened on our very last class and I couldn't get back up again straightaway because of the pain in my wrist. The coach called a first-aider who did the icing thing then I left to make the 3 hour journey home. Thankfully my friend drove.

Anyway my wrist remained painful and when I saw my physiotherapist this morning she refused to treat me saying I must go for an x-ray and rule out a fracture. I'd already read TashaKat's post on Montanarose's thread about broken wrists and everything TashaKat said described mine, but all the same I worried I may have been wasting their time at the hospital. Anyway they x-rayed it and then the nurse called me back and took me straight to the plaster room so I knew I'd fractured it. I have a scaphoid fracture on my left wrist and I'm totally fed up. Even worse is that [1] I'm left-handed so finding everything difficult to do one-handed with my right hand and [2] I broke it on my birthday :cry: :cry: :cry: .

Nicki

[Moto Guzzi]

(((Nicki))) Sorry about your wrist. That wasn't much of a birthday present. I hope the rest of your day was better.

[TashaKat]

Oh no :cry:

I'm so sorry. You'll find over a few days that you adapt really well and that as it starts to heal you can do a few things with it anyway (with the support of the cast!).

One thing that I was told was that Ibuprofen retards the healing process, I don't know if that still stands but it's worth thinking about. I didn't really need pain relief anyway thank goodness and I hope that you're the same, it's just a damn nuisance.

All the best



TK x & the Saff Monster x

[flo]

Hope you're feeling better soon. Take the time to get some rest and relax. You'll be up and waving in no time.

[sceptique]

My God, so sorry to hear that! When did it happen? During the last session?

Hope you get well soon. A colleague of mine had a broken wrist (public session skating at Somerset House last Xmas), and though he had huge inconvenience with everything - from lacing his shoes to signing his credit card receipts - it seemed to heal reasonably fast.

It makes 3 badly injured people altogether in a single day! We had 2 falls in our group - a lady had a collision in the morning, fell on the back of her head and had to go to the hospital. Another lady fell as we were queueing for our certificates, and also hit her head pretty hard. The ice must have been jinxed!

Take a good care of your wrist and hope it won't bother you for long!

[Mrs Redboots]

Bad luck Nicki - you're not the only person to have done that at Nottingham, Other Woman did it a couple of years ago. She refused to have a plaster cast, but had a removable splint, and only missed one session! Mind you, Husband had to be a bit careful dancing with her..... And one of our elite dancers did similarly ten days ago, and hasn't missed a single session!

I do hope you will be fit to skate and we'll see you at Sheffield in October, as planned.... and that you heal fast.

[montanarose]

(Warning: Somewhat long post and probably of more interest to poor Nicki than anyone else with intact wrists.)

As Bill Clinton was fond of saying, "I feel your pain." I broke my left wrist -- lucky for me I'm right-handed -- on 5/24. It wasn't a scaphoid fracture like yours but rather a non-displaced fracture of the radius, one of the two forearm bones. IIRC, the scaphoid is one of the smaller bones of the wrist; I don't know whether that bodes better or worse for your recovery.

I was in a "hard" cast for only three weeks. The sports medicine doc had initially predicted a minimum of six weeks. But when they cut the cast off at the halfway-point to change it, the x-ray showed that the break was, although not healed, healing well (considering my age, 58, and my post-menopausal status, as he so graciously pointed out). He said if I promised to be VERY careful not to re-injure it and, specifically, not to skate, he'd put me in a light brace/splint and have me start physical therapy right away, with the goal of minimizing stiffness and maximizing my recovery of function and range of motion. Apparently it is more standard for docs to leave you in a cast until healing is complete. (Subsequently, a PT friend of mine told me that PTs are notorious for removing their own casts well in advance of when the doc recommends, because they believe so strongly in the benefits of beginnning rehab ASAP.)

Judging by how stiff and sore I was getting my cast off at three weeks, I'd hate to think how bad it would have been at six weeks. I had two PT sessions a week for six weeks, consisting primarily of exercise and massage with each session culminating in either an electrical stimulation or infrared light treatment. I am now essentially pain-free -- except for anything involving significant weight-bearing, such as push-ups -- and, while my wrist is still slightly thickened, I have regained most of my range of motion in all planes. I am faithful (well, mostly) about doing my at-home exercises to stave off arthritis and regain even more flexibility.

I'm now back skating. All told, I was off the ice for nine weeks. I wear my wrist brace as a precautionary measure, although I don't know how much good it would really do if I fell again. The doc says that, if anything, the healed bone is even stronger than before, so I'm not more vulnerable to another break. The trick for me is to learn how to fall properly. Paradoxically, I think my intense fear of falling kept me from falling even a "normal" amount so I never got to practice doing it right :lol:

Good luck to you in your healing!

Cheers,
Ellen

[dbny]

(((((NickiT)))))

How miserable for you to have broken your wrist on your birthday! I have a friend who had always wanted to skate at Rockefeller Center, and treated himself to a public session there for his birthday. He went home with a broken upper arm. These birthdays are tricky! I stick to nice restaurants instead. Of course that didn't protect me.

Like Ellen, I broke my wrist in my 50's, and also got a splint type cast before healing was complete. Mine was a clamshell of plaster held together by an ace bandage. That allowed my elbow to bend just a little. When the cast came off altogether, I regained full mobility in my elbow within about an hour. I never went for PT, but instead did the exercises the doctor showed me. I also used my right arm and hand for everything to strengthen it. It's been four years now and I hardly ever notice, but do occasionally get the odd pain.

I also broke my dominant wrist, but I've always been a bit ambidexterous. I didn't have too much trouble eating with fork or chopsticks using my left, and it did slow me down very pleasantly.

Hope you heal quickly and don't have too hard a time with just the one hand.

[slusher]

I have sprained both my wrists within the past six months. The sprain on my non-dominant hand wasn't that difficult to deal with, I just didn't use that hand much. Spraining more severely my dominant hand has been a huge problem, one good thing is that I started to use my non-dominant hand, which has strengthened it up much more, but I didn't realize how one-sided I was until I had no sides at all :cry:

I'm fearful of falling on either one of them, I don't usually put hand hands out falling while figure skating, my butt takes the brunt of things, but now that I am *aware* of sore wrists, that's all I think about. It has been a problem for dance, some of the change holds twist my wrists in ways that I don't like when I least expect it. Time will be the great healer, but it's taking a long time.

PS, Neither injury happened while skating, which defies the odds since my riskiest activity by far is skating.

[samba]

Oh my gosh Nicki!! 8O
So sorry to hear about the wrist, do take care and I hope you are much better soon. Still doing the British I hope?

Cheers
Grace

[Isk8NYC]

(((Nicki))) Hope it heals faster than expected. Glad it happened on the last class of the Clinic, not the first. (See - there's a bit of silver lining!) Not a great birthday present, but it WILL heal and you'll be back on the ice soon.

[sue123]

I hope you're doing OK. Broken wrists are not fun. Especially the dominant hand. Hope it heals soon and you don't have too much trouble.

On a related note, I might soon be joining you on the injured reserve list soon, depending on what my orthopod tells me on Friday.

[russiet]

Make sure you follow-up and make sure the bone is knitted together correctly. Don't do too much too soon or you'll complicate the healing process. Wrist ones don't always heal correctly and sometimes need to be pinned (worst case....I'm sure that won't happen to you).

I hurt my wrist as a late teenager. I thought it was merely a sprain and let it "heal". Many years later I have arthritis in that wrist and limited movement. It was x-rayed and they found a dis-union of one of the bones (the navicular). Because that bone has been two instead of one, there has been uneven wear throughout the wrist.

Had it been caught early-on, they could have corrected the issue, but now it's too late to get it back.

So, make sure you take care of yourself! Good luck & quick healing.

Jon