Broken Bones

[Scratch]

After hobbling about for a while on what I thought was a sprained ankle, I cashed in on the x-ray and ortho referral yesterday, and the x-rays revealed a fracture of my tibia down near my ankle joint.

So the prognosis is that I'll be in a cast for 6 weeks, although I've found some information that suggests along with the usual diabetic notoriety of slow-healing wounds, bones can be slow to mend as well.

I'm doing my best to maintain tight control, here are my latest meter averages:

* last 7 days = 117 mg/dl
* last 14 days = 117 mg/dl
* last 30 days = 124 mg/dl
* last 60 days = 126 mg/dl
* last 90 days = 126 mg/dl

I've got a followup at the ortho next week to do x-rays and check on early progress. I don't know what the ortho's going to recommend after that, but I'm thinking that I should ask for another followup 2 weeks after that, so if the fracture is going to be slow to heal, it will be known.

Aye yi yi. I really hope that I can be walking again before my birthday.

[Eri's mom]

Ah...broken bones are no fun :( Sorry to hear about that!

I broke my foot almost 2 yrs ago, but the top bones and my big toe...no fun! Crutches in snow just don't seem to work too well!

Hope you heal asap!

[princesslinda]

Hey Scratch:
Sorry to hear about the broken tibia...I broke mine many years ago...no fun trying to get around on crutches. That being said, play that sympathy card at home for all its worth! Also, a word of friendly advice....don't try to scratch down the cast with a pen...they get lost:eek:
Hang in there!

[princesslinda]

BTW, have you ever heard anyone say .... there's something mysterious and special about a man with a limp? Especially a temporary one!

[BriOnH]

Oh man! Scratch that blows, especially considering all the running you have been getting into! Sorry to read about that.

[princesslinda]

Scratch: I didn't mean for my remarks to sound insensitive...after I reread them I realized that my attempt at humor may have fallen flat. Being as active as you are, I know you're stressing. Hopefully, you'll mend soon.:flowers:

[Scratch]

Scratch: I didn't mean for my remarks to sound insensitive...after I reread them I realized that my attempt at humor may have fallen flat. Being as active as you are, I know you're stressing. Hopefully, you'll mend soon.:flowers:
Oh no, it doesn't bother me any. It's just yet another challenge, and challenges have their humorous aspects as well.

Now just have to do what I can do to get it to heal as promptly as feasible, and eventually the physical therapy necessary to restore strength to the musculature around the ankle. I'm working on tenative plans about how to work my way back to running, and depending on when the cast comes off, I think I can resume easy running in April.

Then I'm just going to be very conservative with it, though. I injured it just a few days before I was going to have a recovery week for my training, and now that I've reviewed everything, I was pushing too hard too fast. It may be that if I had just been running a little less, and little easier over that period of 6 days, the bone would have been okay.

Live and learn. And keep on trying.

[princesslinda]

With such a tenacious attitude, i'm sure you'll be up and about much quicker than I would with such an injury.

[Cyborg]

I'm wondering if I did the same thing. I put all my weight on the side of my foot accidentally and twisted it wrong. I swear I heard and felt something give. It's been about 2 weeks and it is still bothering me. It's hurting like the dickens tonight...

[notme]

I am sorry you broke your leg Scratch. That really does suck. What did you do??????

Here is hoping you mend quickly and get back to your exercise!!! :stickyman

[Scratch]

I am sorry you broke your leg Scratch. That really does suck. What did you do??????

Here is hoping you mend quickly and get back to your exercise!!! :stickyman
I probably got the initial bit of break on the 21st of December. Since starting running back in early November, I've been trying to follow the basic idea of use a period of time of about 3 weeks to slowly increase the amount of running, then have a week where you go easy, cut back on the miles and time, which gives the body a chance to finish rebuilding the muscles that have been stressed.

But there's also stress being put on the bones, ligaments, and tendons.

So I felt my ankle twinging on the 21st and I came to a stop after a bit, thinking I had sprained the ankle. Did the RICE, rest, ice, compression, and elevation, and was walking almost normally Christmas day. But then Thursday after Christmas I'm doing a gentle walk after lunch at work, and things begin hurting again. Went to doing RICE again, but wasn't any better by Tuesday this week, so I went to the doctor. He thought it was a sprain too, but put in referrals for x-rays and an ortho in case the ankle didn't start getting any better after a week.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I knew it wasn't getting any better, so I elected to use the referrals, get the ankle x-rayed and see what was going on.

The ortho and the staff at the office were both amazed and appalled that I had been walking around on it.

[Cyborg]

Man that does suck. I sure hope I'm not in the same boat. I think I'll go get an xray tomorrow...

[Tattoo azz]

Ouch!! scratch i feel for you,sounds like all the increased activity could be part of the cause,a warning there for us all i think.I once fractured 2 toes and a small bone in my ankle while getting out of bed(i had just had horizontal fun with my now ex girlfriend),and walked about at work all day thinking i'd sprained it.Got home took a shower,saw my foot was black and thought hmmmm now that looks bad.Cyborg go see your doc

[Scratch]

Man that does suck. I sure hope I'm not in the same boat. I think I'll go get an xray tomorrow...
Good luck with that. Now that I know it's possible to walk around on a fracture in the ankle, it's a good idea to get that checked out. Of course, ankle sprains aren't any fun either, but it's probably a good thing to rule out possibilities so you can get the proper treatment for it. Ankles are complicated joints.

Tattoo -- Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the break was from too much running too soon with not quite enough rest and recovery time. One thing this tells me is it might be better for me to use a modified schedule of 2 weeks building, 1 week recovery. That's conservative, but it might just be a necessary schedule for me. Some people can recover quicker than others anyway, but I might be one predisposed to slower recovery. I'm sure having diabetes doesn't help that.

[Scratch]

I went to my ortho appointment and got good news, but also got some disturbing information about the break.

First, the good stuff. The bone is in alignment and looking like a normal healthy person’s healing at this time. The doctor says it’s okay now if I want to use my toes to lightly balance myself. Don’t go stomping around on it, of course, but the leg can have a bit more function than just dangling in space. He thinks it looks the cast should be able to come off in 5 weeks, February 15th. At that time, I will probably have to go to a boot sort of contraption, which would be removeable for bathing, but would just help to provide support as the bone is still not to full strength at that time, along with the muscle atrophy and tendon stiffening that will occur.

Now, the bad stuff. It wasn’t an itty bitty fracture. I broke the tibia all the way across, or a transverse fracture. The doctor suspects that there had been a stress fracture early on, and it may be because of some nerve damage down in my lower legs that I couldn’t feel the pain that would have been there. He also thinks that in 5 weeks it might be worth considering getting a bone density scan done, to check if my bones are full strength or somehow compromised. I did inform him though how I think that my diet over the past few months has been inadequate in dairy consumption, and he agreed that it was possible because of the running and the amount I had begun doing I had outstressed my left tibia past the point where it could repair itself, especially if my consumption of calcium and vitamin D had been insufficient. The judgment of that will be informed more by the x-rays that’ll be taken on February 15th, we’ll see how the bone has healed. My suspicion is that if it has healed fully as might be expected of a normally healthy person then the thinking that I haven’t been consuming enough dairy product will be confirmed, and that the need for doing a bone density scan won’t be there. So long as I keep drinking my milk and eating my yogurt.

I’ll probably need some physical therapy after the cast is removed, to help instruct me in exercises that will help me rebuild the muscles down in the ankle, and loosen up the tendons and ligaments.

[LancetChick]

Definitely keep your blood sugars in check, because it does make a difference. When I broke my ankle last spring my orthopedic surgeon told me he consults regularly with an endo for his diabetic patients who have trouble maintaining good control. I found a very informative message board MyBrokenLeg.com : Discussion : General (http://www.mybrokenleg.com/forums/list.php?f=2) and learned that there are an awful lot of non-diabetics who heal very slowly, so don't automatically assume you're falling down on the job if that happens to you. Good luck!

[Scratch]

Definitely keep your blood sugars in check, because it does make a difference. When I broke my ankle last spring my orthopedic surgeon told me he consults regularly with an endo for his diabetic patients who have trouble maintaining good control. I found a very informative message board MyBrokenLeg.com : Discussion : General (http://www.mybrokenleg.com/forums/list.php?f=2) and learned that there are an awful lot of non-diabetics who heal very slowly, so don't automatically assume you're falling down on the job if that happens to you. Good luck!
Yeah, definitely. The big problem with healing fractures is getting the bone adequate blood supply to heal itself. Poor blood sugars equal syrup that's hard to circulate. I've been maintaining good sugars during this first week of having a cast on, and I expect that if I maintain the way I've been going, the A1c I will have drawn in early February should be 6.0 or less.

It was a bit of a downer to think of all the things that can be worried about, but at least I can be happy about the early progress. I hope that when I go into the office next month on the 15th, the cast gets removed, and I can start my progress back to walking and eventually running again.

[princesslinda]

So sorry you're having to go through all of this....glad the bone is healing well though. Try not to think of all the negative "possibilities," as you are doing everything you can to control any potential problems. Hang in there!