Broken Wrist !

[hondated]

Nice simple question has anyone else managed to do this and if you have how quickly were you able to get cycling again.
Having operation on Wednesday so hoping after that it wont be longer than 6 - 8 weeks before I am back out on my bike.
Hopefully a wrist support I have seen for sale on CRC site will make it even easier to do.

[ferrit worrier]

A great deal depends on the severity of the break. Many years ago I broke my left wrist, six weeks in cast and a bit stiff at first but it gradually recovered full articulation. Last year our Sarah broke her wrist whilst roller blading although at the time of the fall she was stationary. She made a right mess of it both the ulna and the radius went, the ulna is still bent and she has limited movement, a tempory splint has helped with the articulation but we are now looking at another operation to correct the curvature of the ulna.
Hope you get a speedy recovery .

Malc

[Toffee]

My wife did this last year, two weeks before we were due to do a LEJOG. She had 3 pins put in the next day and a cast put on.

Four weeks later she had the pins taken out and the next week we went for for a weeks tour of southern Holland by bike, camping each night. She rode with front and rear panniers.

Her wrist was a bit sore and we limited the days to less than 40 miles.

Nearly 8 months later she still doesn't have full mobility in the wrist but compared to the day she did it it's not a bad repair.

Hope you heal well

[mjr]

From memory, I had a hairline fracture from a fall while running, the cast was off after about six weeks and I think I was cycling again a few days after that, once I'd stopped my arm "floating away"...

[reohn2]

Nice simple question has anyone else managed to do this and if you have how quickly were you able to get cycling again.
Having operation on Wednesday so hoping after that it wont be longer than 6 - 8 weeks before I am back out on my bike.
Hopefully a wrist support I have seen for sale on CRC site will make it even easier to do.

I've had simple fractures to wrists three times,two on the right one,on the left,and broken bones in my hands one each side.6 to 8weeks is about right,though that was a looonnnggg time ago when I was young and daft.
But it sounds as if yours is a bit more complicated if you need an operation,are you having plates or pins fitted or having it reset?

[landsurfer]

For the best wrist supports go to your local SK8 shop and get a pair of Rectors ..... 100% better than anything the NHS will give or recommend.
And when you've healed sell them on ebay .....
Totally rad dude ..... as some would say ... apparently

[Cyril Haearn]

For the best wrist supports go to your local SK8 shop and get a pair of Rectors ..... 100% better than anything the NHS will give or recommend.
And when you've healed sell them on ebay .....
Totally rad dude ..... as some would say ... apparently

What is SK8?
Skate?!

[hondated]

What can I say thanks for all of your advice and experiences.
Malc just hope your Sarah gets it all sorted out soon and should add i hope my experience is like yours rather than Sarahs.
Thanks Toffee hope your wife gains full mobility again and once again given she still toured it says to me that us men really are the weaker sex.Glad my wife isn't reading this.
mjr just hope i have the same experience but given i have to have an op i doubt that it will be.
Blimey John once is enough for me. They initially manipulated it an put it in a plaster cast hoping it would stabilise it but then when i returned a week later they said that the bone is wanted to return to the position where it broke. Because of that they said they would either have to fit a plate or use wires, is that what we call pins, to reposition it properly.
Not looking forward to it but in some ways relieved i wont have to man up as they will knock me out rather than what i thought would be a local anaesthetic.
landsurfer thanks for the heads up for the Rectors as i was going to buy as i mentioned a wrist support from CRC.
Hopefully you will all know this anyway but boy is our NHS good. Ok initial wait in A & E felt like a long time as i was in pain but once the process began after being x rayed manipulated plastered i was walking out of the hospital 90 minutes later. All staff were helpful friendly and courteous and we even had a laugh about what an idiot i had been. It was a garden accident and if only i had been filming it i could of got £250 off that tv programme.
The creepy thing about it as well is that a week before i brought a Honda CrossTourer motorbike that does have a clutch and its my left wrist i have broken. Spooky or what !

[landsurfer]

For the best wrist supports go to your local SK8 shop and get a pair of Rectors ..... 100% better than anything the NHS will give or recommend.
And when you've healed sell them on ebay .....
Totally rad dude ..... as some would say ... apparently

What is SK8?
Skate?!

Until my early 40's as well as cycling i was "the old guy on the skateboard" ... not so much street, but ramps.
My love was / is ramps, especially the big vert ramps like Hastings ... 8 ft drop into the transition ....
The " secret steel ramps" at Crowhurst. Where i smashed my right shoulder to pieces in a drop in and step off ....
In South Wales ... "Ramp on the hill" above the motorway north of Cardiff / Newport ....

"Sk8 is not a crime"

In 1969, in Bangor NI , i was making skateboards for myself and friends from our sisters roller skates and off cuts of wood from the building sites around us .
The war started that year in ernest ... amphibious landing ships in the bay and the skies full of Wessex as our saviours arrived .... ish ...
Skate boards where not the priority !!!!!!!

So now ... I cycle. I kayak. I surf .... and with my grandkids ... i have started to Sk8 again ..... bliss squared.

[thirdcrank]

A family friend who's about our age - early seventies - fell downstairs last year and on the way down thought she was going to die. Fortunately, she lived to tell the tale with "only" a broken wrist. When we all met for lunch just before Christmas she showed me how well it had been fixed but there was a lot of metalwork in there. She's not a cyclist but I think the result of all the treatment she received was a demonstration of what can be done these days.

All the best with this. With all the snow and ice forecast, I'll be using my shoe studs to try to avoid slipping and joining the queue at A&E.

[PT1029]

I had a wrist fracture, slow speed fall off my bike - the bone was in line (just a crack) and no operation needed, just a plaster. I was on the bike after 6 - 7 weeks, when the plaster came off, the wrist ached a bit at first. I was told if I cycled (I asked) with the plasted on and fell off, I'd probably make a real mess of it and need an operation. I was also told I would not be insured to drive (no car, so no problem for me).
I used a splint on/off at work (use hands at work so to speak) for a while after the plaster came off.
If you have not had such a thing before, you will be shocked at how limited your wrist movement will have become*. You really must take up any offer of physio once the plaster is off, and do as they say. (*Physio checks grip strength and wrist flexibility against the unbroken wrist, my right wrist (I'm right handed) had 1/2 the grip strength of my left wrist, and movement was quite restricted, but recovered back to its old self).

I managed some home cycle mechanics and gardening with the plaster on, modern fibeglass "plaster" makes quite a good hammer (within reason of course!).

[hondated]

landsurfer love your story as it proves you really don't need to get old.
We took our family a few years ago to Florida and spotting a nice pair of Superman Vans that I wanted to buy being in my 60s I was told I was too old to wear them. So a big sulk from me and I had to settle for a black and grey pair. Boring. Yes stay young I say.
Thanks thirdcrank and I hope your friend is progressing ok. Sadly given I am a couple weeks away from being 67 its only when things like this happen that you realise that your not as young as you once were. Your right about the advances in medicine as well because as a kid I came off my bike and fractured my arm which also need a plaster cast but the process was so much longer to do than this time.
Yes use those shoe studs and be careful. That's something I will have to get as well.
Thanks PT1029 for your advice and details of your experience. Particularly on the initial weakness I could have when the plaster is removed.
I just find it ironic that i have only just brought a motorcycle without a clutch or gear lever as its my left wrist which is broken so i will literally just need enough strength to support my arm. I must say that i don't know what is more painful my broken wrist or not being able to drive.
My wife says i am very fortunate to have her to drive me about. Mmmmm best not say anymore then !
What this whole episode has done though is make me question yet again whether its time to give up motorcycling because although i ride very carefully these days i honestly don't want to suffer anymore experiences like this again.
Whats that saying better to live a day as a tiger than a year as a lamb. Think i might opt for being a lamb now.

[fastpedaller]

I broke my left wrist falling from a step ladder when 49 years old. It was only a crack really (no pins/surgery needed) and I had a short 'plaster'... read glass fibre which only went half-way up my forearm. Once the swelling went down (10 days IIRC) I rode the bike, on the basis that I could still use the front brake and we live in the country (not commuting/competing with traffic) My thought was 'blood circulation due to exercise' would aid recovery. Although I did this, and moved fingers as much as possible, I was surprised how much the muscle had withered away when the glass fibre 'plaster'was cut off.
I was advised to use/abuse it as much as possible, as although it would be painful I couldn't do it any harm. This turned out to be good advice (I wrenched nuts on the car etc, and did some plumbing) and although it hurt for maybe 4 weeks, I haven't noticed any weakness since.
Hope you have a quick recovery.
ps ETA the 'plaster' was on 6 weeks.

[fausto copy]

Many many moons ago (when ah were a lad) I fractured a bone in my wrist playing basketball.
I had a plastercast fitted for the regulation 6 weeks and had it removed as per.
In them days that was that and thought no more about it.

Once starting work I realised that if I needed to grip anything (squeeze plier type thingys) I had pain from it.
That was exacerbated a couple of years later when I tore ligament around the same area.
Given splint for a few weeks, then told to get on with it.
Same outcome only slightly worse.

Having since broken a few bones, tore a few more ligaments, dislocated shoulders etc
I have been fairly well looked after in that follow ups were given.

I think the moral of the story is that science has advanced since those dark days and though often mocked mercilessly,
the good old NHS has come on leaps and bounds in aftercare of injuries and operations such as these.

Please, please make sure you take up all offers of physio and no matter how much it hurts, stick with it and I'm sure
(even at your great age ) you will make a fine recovery.

Good luck on Wednesday and evermore,

fausto.

[hondated]

thanks fastpedaler hope your experience is now a distant memory and i too when the plaster is removed to find a very withered limb. Just wish my bones were as big on me as the fat i carry.
thanks fausto glad yours too is a distant memory.
Got to admit i am already thinking of using my straight barred mountain bike but going by what you have told me and others i think it will be far wiser to wait until the plaster is removed.
Operation went fine and i just cannot believe how they insert the is it an cannula connect a small bottle of liquid and the next thing you find someone talking to you asking whether you would like a cup of tea.
Hopefully neither you or our forum colleagues will ever need to go into hospital but if you should i am sure like myself you will not believe how good the care is they give you. I am sure if Ely reads this she would agree.
For the record my injury is Distal Radius Fracture which they have wired up and i am now in far less pain.
Just need some sunshine now !