Tell me about your broken arm.

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Well, I just fell down the stairs and fractured and dislocated my left elbow. Head of my radius got knocked off. I had surgery three days ago; they reattached the bone with a plate and screw and did some ligament repair too. Now I'm at home with some P3rc0cet and lots of questions. Anybody else do anything like this to yourself? What was the recovery like? How long and how bad does it keep hurting? How was physical therapy? Did you eventually get full function back? (Surgeon says I can expect to, but may have some stiffness and earlier arthritis.) Tips for coping?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 15 April 2006 14:59 (twenty years ago)

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9327/brokenarm9oy.jpg

― timmy tannin (pompous), Saturday, 15 April 2006 15:02 (twenty years ago)

i didn't do anything like that, precisely, but i broke both my wrists when i was 13. one was a hairline fracture, barely noticeable at first, the other slightly compound, but re-set 98% of the way and no surgery. i took lots of drugs and watched lots of movies (it was summer, for the first few weeks), and one of my casts, which went over my elbow, stayed on for like maybe 2 months. don't remember pain, or at least really bothersome pain, while en-casted. first time the bad arm came out of the cast, though, it felt like the arm felt terrified and uncertain how to support itself and i think it hurt a lot. as did physical therapy at first. it got better, but never felt great, you know. i still don't have full range of motion (which you don't really notice unless you go out of your way to investigate (or maybe on a very rainy day), so recommend working as hard as poss through the pain, but i'm not sure that doesn't also have to do with the way it was reset.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 15 April 2006 19:34 (twenty years ago)

Do *everything* they tell you to do in terms of physical therapy. I regained full use of my arm within three months.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Monday, 17 April 2006 05:44 (twenty years ago)

I was riding my bike and two hoodlums ran up on me and knocked me off it. My arm forearm was cracked so bad I needed a metal clamp to hold it together. Also had the Percocet, though I'm kind of afraid of addiction so I took it only when the pain became unbearable. The pain only really lasted a few days. I came out of the cast about two months later and had a little bit of pain and even 7 years later the arm still hurts if I try to lift anything heavy.

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Monday, 17 April 2006 07:04 (twenty years ago)

I was about thirteen or fourteen, I think. I was running along a corridor with a door halfway along it. While running towards the door, I put my hand out to open the door and carry on through, except the door didn't open so I didn't carry on anywhere except straight into the closed door. The pain was unlike anything I've ever experienced, then I couldn't feel anything, I think I was in shock.

I went to the hospital and was so concerned with the fact that I thought I had broken my nose, I forgot all about my wrist until they x-rayed it and told me I'd broken it.

I was in plaster for about six weeks, and the encased bit of my arm was all flaky and yellow with masses of dead skin when the cast came off, which is an excellent way of freaking your classmates at that age. It gets really really itchy, and poking a ruler down it just makes it worse.

Also showering with a plastic bag over your arm = trickiest thing ever. I had to get other people to wash my hair for me for six weeks.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 17 April 2006 10:17 (twenty years ago)

I never broke a bone. I sometimes feel like I have missed out.

http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/Newsletters/News010505/Cat.broken.arm.Joshua_Rosen.gif

― dave vire think (dave225.3), Monday, 17 April 2006 11:28 (twenty years ago)

Not with my arm, but seven years ago or so I broke my right leg just above the ankle and had to have a plate and several screws put in. I was laid up for two weeks in bed, since I had to keep it constantly elevated, which was just about enough to drive me absolutely cabin-fever stir crazy, so be thankful you don't have to put up with that. Everybody else's advice is spot-on re: PT and everything else. I don't have full range of motion now (and pretty much had to give up skiing because of it), and that leg sometimes tires easily when I'm diving or running, but otherwise it's cool.

Also, my advice is to give up any painkillers as soon as you feel you can. For me, being on them for so long, along with being cooped up in bed, caused enormous depression.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Monday, 17 April 2006 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Phil, absolutely right about the painkillers. Horrible depressive drugs, and the actual pain-killing benefit is negligible. Only about an hour's relief, then you're jumping out of your skin for hours before you can take the next dose. I get slightly strung out on them within a couple of days, and withdrawal is uncomfortable, a bit like a protracted panic-attack with wicked insomnia. A prescription-level dose of Ibuprofen (800mg every four hours) is much better.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 17 April 2006 13:10 (twenty years ago)

eleven years pass...

woke up with intense pain in my right arm, called 911 and turns out my arm is broken

― kolakube (Ross), Saturday, 10 March 2018 18:49 (eight years ago)

you broke it in your sleep?!

― ogmor, Saturday, 10 March 2018 18:59 (eight years ago)

no idea how i broke it, didn't fall or hurt my arm before bed or while sleeping. wondering if it's just a gradual degradation i=of tissue to breaking point

― kolakube (Ross), Saturday, 10 March 2018 23:02 (eight years ago)

Maybe you should get checked for bone density? A friend of mine recently fractured his tibia while doing yoga (like, he didn't fall or anything, was just stretching).

― change display name (Jordan), Saturday, 10 March 2018 23:49 (eight years ago)

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