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

(www.scientificamerican.com)
611 points sohkamyung | 6 comments | 19 Feb 25 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.436s | source | bottom
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rodary ◴[20 Feb 25 02:29 UTC] No.43110391[source]▶
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 walks around the house.

8 weeks after the surgery rocked up to a road race, still on crutches because walking was still a bit uncomfy but being on the bike was fine. Raced to a 3rd place (Masters A) with hard breakaways and all.

12 weeks after the surgery go to see the surgeon to check if I can start walking (already walking by this stage as normal). He X-rays me and says your bone is fully healed. Strange but good he said.

I told him the story. Still don't know if he believed me.

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1. flocciput ◴[20 Feb 25 15:13 UTC] No.43115662[source]▶
How old were you?
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2. criddell ◴[20 Feb 25 16:43 UTC] No.43116907[source]▶
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 about is the mallet finger. I've been told to keep it in a splint for 8 weeks and if I accidentally bend it a little before then any healing will have to start over and I might end up needing surgery for it.

If anybody here has had mallet finger, I'd love to hear how it went for you.

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3. ngd ◴[20 Feb 25 17:28 UTC] No.43117591[source]▶
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.

4. flocciput ◴[20 Feb 25 21:09 UTC] No.43120220[source]▶
Yep, something I'm realizing is a lot of guidelines/expectations around how long something will take to heal seem to be based on people in the 30-45 range. In your teens and twenties you might get injured and heal faster than expected and think "huh, must be my genes/technique/etc" when really it's probably just youth. Suuuuucks when you start to realize that superpower of yours is fading.
5. rodary ◴[20 Feb 25 22:20 UTC] No.43121070[source]▶
43 at the time.

Probably relevant too – systematic endurance training since 12, elite-level racing since 18 (world champion at that point). So not a stranger to all kinds of injury and what works and what doesn't. For me that is.

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6. flocciput ◴[20 Feb 25 22:40 UTC] No.43121322[source]▶
Nice! I was gonna say 43 is encouraging to hear, as someone who's worried about how age will affect my proneness to injury/ability to recover, but that's an impressive background and probably a major factor. Guess that's another good reason to stay active.