Guys as many of you know i have recently broken my fibular, and i know of at least three other bone grinders on this forum.

For me this is the first time i have had such a break. So i thought i would ask those that have broken before me how long it took to:


A: mend so you can use broken appendage carefully.
B: forget and carry on as before without being careful.

Obviously depends on the actual injury but rough rule of thumb would be 6 weeks for bone healing, another 6 weeks physio etc 'til everything is right.

From current personal experience (without Surgery)


1. 6 Weeks in plaster

2. 2 Weeks in 'Aircast' boot - Non Weight bearing when not wearing boot!

3. Back on 2 feet this week - and my consultant says be will be another 4 weeks till the bone has fully fused.

4. Now just working on the soft tissue damage/lack of strength - who knows how long. But it doesn't stop some bike work .


Re the forgetting, not sure on that, but I broke the other one 6 years ago and a some point went back to damaging myself. !!

This is a how long is a piece of string question but the most likely course is as described above. I reckon three to four months from the operation before you can be safe to go mountain biking but they will probably tell you five to six months before re-starting sports like mountain biking so that it's as strong as before. Anything before that will be down to some special healing powers you may have!

Milk is a good thing and I'm an apple juice believer too one glass every day. Try not to diet but try not to put on too much weight either! If you have to go one way or the other it's better to be putting on a little weight in the healing weeks you must not starve your body of nutrients at this time. If you gain a bit then you can always train and diet it off later. Get down the gym as soon as you can and train all the parts you still can, this will stimulate your whole body to build.

You will still get wasting of your left leg muscles but will soon get it back once you can use it and train.

I crashed in May and broke loads of bones, the most painful by far was 3 ribs. I have been having physio once a week since June but my ribs are still very painful, to the point where I still cannot take a deep breath. X-ray last week revealed that the fractures have actually healed so physio is a little stumped as to why my ribs still hurt. . . .

Been back out playing for a couple of months though!

6 months thats bad news indeed, food i am good with, generally i dont touch milk but thats easily solved looks like i will be hitting the gym mats as soon as i am able.

It is possible to beat my estimates with hard training, lots of sleep at night plus a healthy diet.

Al, at least it's getting closer to winter time and not much decent riding.

Good luck with the healing, as hard as it seems plenty of rest is in order

Thanks Lucien

from personal experience ...
ribs - 4-5 weeks
scapular I was back riding 2-3 weeks (very lightly).

fibular and tibia spiral fracture - 18 months (lots of titanium) -
The fibular is spiraled from 3/4 of the way up my leg and will never heal.
Apparently its not load bearing and is only needed to lever some ankle muscles.

this is an xray of the leg healed ...

http://www.nostra-casa.co.uk/images/leg2.JPG

Kerr

wow Kerr, i need not complain! thats one nasty break....i broke the knuckle off the same bone down the bottom, i have 7 small screws and a plate..

Looks like they did a good job on that although the proximal of the two distal screws needs another two turns, do you have an Allen key and a scalpel handy?



The end at the ankle (Distal Fibula) forms part of the ankle joint and where it is broken through (A la Speedy) your foot is not stable and the ankle joint falls apart. Yours was fine as it broke much higher up, Al needs his to heal substantially before he can get his full weight on it. This is always a paradox as bones heal best when in use, only you can't use it...