Has anyone ever broken or fractured a bone? What was your recovery like?

A few years ago, I broke a bone in my leg while swimming in the sea. It was purely the force of a large wave that did it; I didn't even hit anything solid.

I spent two nights of my vacation in hospital, then had six weeks off work (paid) with my leg in a cast. After the cast was removed, I had physiotherapy once a week for several weeks, but I was already walking without crutches after one week, and cycling after about two weeks.

The weirdest part was just learning to walk again; it was such a strange feeling not being able to do something I'd been able to do my whole life.

I also broke my left arm when I was 13 and had my arm in a cast for twelve weeks. I couldn't participate in any PE lessons in school. I remember playing a lot of Amiga games that only required mouse input (e.g. Lemmings), so I could play using only one hand. I didn't need any physiotherapy for that though.

Took a trip to snap city two years ago after arm wrestling.




The pain was obviously excruciating. Had to go to physical therapy for about 10 weeks. Could barely move it for the first four weeks or so. Sleeping was extremely uncomfortable.

During sugery they put in a metal bar to hold the bones together so I at least felt no more pain (except for the big ass scar healing). 1,5 years later I had to take that bitch out, though that recovery was obviously a lot easier.

Don't arm wrestle, kids.

I've suffered a few over the years, first was my wrist, fractured it in 3 places playing football (soccer), was in a plaster cast for 6 weeks. Second was the patella bone in front of my knee again playing football, didn't take too long to heal. My 3rd fracture was my ribs, you've guesses it, playing football.... that took around 6-7 weeks to heal. My worse injury was damaging my ankle ligaments, done that playing football too, that took 6 months to heal.

A few years ago I had a rupture on my achilles heel. Took 8 months to fully recover.
And all over a minuless jump playing with my nephews.

I've broken my arm, foot, collar bone, many fingers, and my jaw. Jaw was the worst by miles. 6 weeks without solid food sucks, and it's pretty uncomfortable too. My arm was the first thing I broke and i found it surprisingly less painful than I expected. I thought I'd just dislocated it when I noticed my hand wasn't where it used to be.

Broke a bone in my foot ten years ago and had to have a cast for a month, the worst part was learn to walk again without crutches.

Knight in Shining Armani said:

Took a trip to snap city two years ago after arm wrestling.

The pain was obviously excruciating. Had to go to physical therapy for about 10 weeks. Could barely move it for the first four weeks or so. Sleeping was extremely uncomfortable.

During sugery they put in a metal bar to hold the bones together so I at least felt no more pain (except for the big ass scar healing). 1,5 years later I had to take that bitch out, though that recovery was obviously a lot easier.

Don't arm wrestle, kids.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Jesus, who were you arm wrestling? Hulk?

I broke my foot, my arm, my wrist and my nose (all before i was 14 or something). I just waited.

I spent two entire days with my foot broken. Even went to do some math test while it was broken. I thought it could be a sprain lol

No idea how I survived my teen years. I had no concerns whatsoever about my body.

I've fractured my wrists a few times, dislocated my right elbow pretty bad once and got my jaw broken once.

Wrists were kinda whatever. Both times I fractured them I didn't even realize it at first and continued skateboarding/downhill skiing. Elbow was weird, it didn't really hurt that much.. Except when the nurses started to wrestle it back in place. Fuck me if that wasn't the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, and it went on for like 15 minutes. After that I neglected the little stuff I should've been doing after I got rid of the plaster cast, and it took me a few years until I could finally straighten my arm all the way again.

Jaw was another that was weird at first, mostly annoying after. Some kids jumped me and hit me in the face hard enough to break it, but it really just felt like it was just dislocated a bit lol. Shock and alcohol, I guess. Didn't really hurt much after the first few days either, but yeah, not being able to eat anything solid for some weeks was by far the worst part of it.

True Savior said:

I broke my leg, my arm, my wrist and my nose (all before i was 14 or something). I just waited.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

You just waited for your leg to heal? What did you do, just sit still for 3 weeks?

e: looks like you ninja edited. I know that "yeah whatever it's just sprained" feeling lol.

4 times now. started way back in kindergarten, fell down a slide headfirst(right arm), then once during tennis(left knee), tripped over on the hard court , once riding (left shin and elbow) and finally the worst one, ankle and fingers on a hiking trip while literally on a glacier . this is how i found out i could use my left hand just as well as the right lol
im surprised i havent broken something in my head yet considering i have had 3 gashes so far that had to be stitched up quite a bit lol.

ara said:

You just waited for your leg to heal? What did you do, just sit still for 3 weeks? What did you do, just sit still for 3 weeks?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

lol no. foot/leg cast. But its mostly waiting right?

edit: it was foot, not leg.

Knight in Shining Armani said:

Took a trip to snap city two years ago after arm wrestling.

The pain was obviously excruciating. Had to go to physical therapy for about 10 weeks. Could barely move it for the first four weeks or so. Sleeping was extremely uncomfortable.

During sugery they put in a metal bar to hold the bones together so I at least felt no more pain (except for the big ass scar healing). 1,5 years later I had to take that bitch out, though that recovery was obviously a lot easier.

Don't arm wrestle, kids.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Damn son.

Abu said:

Jesus, who were you arm wrestling? Hulk?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I wish. Then I would've lost quickly. The reason why it snapped was because it went on for too long/we were evenly matched. Plus we were standing, Arnie/Carl Weathers style.

I've popped my shoulder out twice, put it back in myself once (i was drunk at the time, and thought it would be a good idea). And i've broke 3 toes and chipped a bone in my ankle and wrist. The toes took a long while to heal up, i'd say about 6 weeks in total.

How did you manage to do that Sol?

Suffered some fractures over the years doing sports. The first two fractures were during primary school years. I fractured my right wrist in 2 places during a dodgeball tournament. I was in a cast for 6.5 weeks. Luckily I'm ambidextrous so I couldn't use that as an excuse to miss out on school work. A year later I fractured my left wrist playing football, this time in 3 places, I was in a cast for nearly 8 weeks.
The later two were during my teen years. I fractured my patella in ballet when I was 13. The pain was unreal, I remember screaming all the way to the hospital. Killed any hope for a career in dance and it took half a year to fully recover. I fractured the same knee two years later while I was surfing when a wave took me towards the coast and I wound up crashing into some rocks. I'm lucky I didn't drown that day because my board got swept away from the coast dragging me with it. Luckily I was with my dad. Took most of the year and physical therapy to recover.

Broke my arm back in HS. My biggest tip is follow thru physical therapy and work on getting your strength back.

Neck when I was 17. Worst shit ever. Still feeling pain 13 years later.

Knight in Shining Armani said:

Took a trip to snap city two years ago after arm wrestling.

The pain was obviously excruciating. Had to go to physical therapy for about 10 weeks. Could barely move it for the first four weeks or so. Sleeping was extremely uncomfortable.

During sugery they put in a metal bar to hold the bones together so I at least felt no more pain (except for the big ass scar healing). 1,5 years later I had to take that bitch out, though that recovery was obviously a lot easier.

Don't arm wrestle, kids.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Had a spiral fracture two years ago, just like it. It also was because of arm wrestling haha, a really dumb drunken night. I didn't feel too much pain aside from when the doc re-positioned it. Recover was more uncomfortable but I got used to it and fortunately I didn't have to have surgery. It was 5 weeks of the giant splint from the first night and 5 weeks of a smaller brace.

Fractured my leg when I was 9 in a car crash. During summer vacation. Basically spent most of my summer at home playing games, but after about one month I could already move pretty well using crutchs.
At first I had a very heavy cask who was then replaced by a much lighter one. Remember feeling like my leg was so light it might float.
All in all I think I had my leg in a cask for 4~ months and even before taking it out I could already walk. Didn't need any physical therapy, but it sure hurted at first.

I had a hairline fracture near my left elbow. It hurt like hell. Took a few months to heal.

I fractured my wrist when I was a kid. I jumped from one end of the monkey bars to another. My hands slipped so I fell and braced my fall with my fists. I wore a cast for several weeks but I don't remember being in any excruciating pain.

I'm actually on week 6 of a broken fibula right now. Thankfully work is mostly a desk job so I've still been able to go and only missed a few days. Bad thing is work is on the second floor (no elevator) and I live on the second floor as well. Live alone so no help either. Thank goodness for internet grocery shopping though getting the groceries upstairs can be fun.

Fractured my right arm twice by falling from my bike and landing on my hand. Barely visible on the x-ray, but still hurt a lot. The first time around I had to do a few weeks of rehab, but the second time I regained total mobility on my own

Just my nose. Cracking it back in place was a nasty feeling

Left ankle, foot was also pointing the wrong way. 4 operations, quite a bit of physical therapy, about 14 months recovery until no swelling. Still stiff after I've been off of it for a while but loosens up to the point where it feels normal.

Broken jaw. Had to have my mouth wired shut for a month or so and eat via liquid diet. Kinda like braces except you can't open your mouth at all. The liquid diet is by far the worst part of this.

Once the wires came off recovery was simply exercising my jaw by opening and closing my mouth as wide as I could. Eventually, I got off the liquid diet after a couple of weeks w/o the wires and everything went back to normal.

Broke my arm falling off a horse back when I was twelve or thirteen. My elbow's ball joint kinda... Fell off, and my wrist shattered. Had a cast on there for about two and a half months, I think? It's hard to remember. I went down to a half cast after about a month and a half, and finally had the forearm cast and last few pins removed after the full two and a half. I was lucky to have my mum around to help with all the day to day stuff while I still couldn't use my arm at all, or get it wet.

Once the elbow cast was off, I just made a point of trying to make my arm go straight - without any external force - whenever I had a free moment, pretty much. I think it took me about another month to get there. I was supposed to have physical therapy for a while, to build my strength back up, but for whatever reason my arm held up to the break and the time in a cast better than expected, so I passed the required tests after just the one session.

Simple breaks are bad enough, but complex breaks suck ass. Multiple metal pins, multiple surgeries, extra recovery time. I've broken my left arm twice, my right knee, and my left foot so badly it required multiple pins and surgeries.

Yes i fractured my elbow on thanksgiving this past year. it took me a week to finally go to a doctor to get an xray :p

i had to wear a sling for a month, then off for a month, and I need to do some occupational therapy because i dont quite have a full range of motion. for the most part the pain is gone unless it bends or stretches a certain way.

Broke my elbow after falling off a bike, had an arm in a sling for like a month.

Cracked a rib at San Fermín a couple years back and had trouble breathing for a couple weeks.

I got hit by a car and broke my leg about 30 years ago, it didn't set back in exactly the same place which means that leg is a bit shorter now, so I over pronate on one foot a lot.

I've also broken both arms, but had no ill effects from them.

ate it hard on a dirtbike when I was 18 and snapped my collarbone. Recovery was about a year before I stopped getting intermittent pain but now Im in my 30s and I need to get it rechecked out again. Ill have weeks where it feels like I tweaked a nerve in the same shoulder/neck area and I can barely move. Dont know for sure if its related to the collarbone but I have a strong feeling it is.

I also smashed my large toe into 8 fragments a couple years ago. Recovery was about 6 weeks and it hasnt bothered me since.

Broke my wrists as a kid/teenager 3 or 4 times.

Collarbone in the gym. That shit was painful, like having a big knife stuck in your shoulder. Walking around with a brace around my chest/shoulders was also annoying. I can't remember the recovery time though. Took a while...

Had a fractured ankle, six weeks recovery. The worst was getting an itch in the cast, had to keep a ruler pocketed in there at all times.

I fractured my pinky toe 2 times and there's nothing the doc could do except put cotton between the toes and tape it up. It fucking SUCKED

I broke my arm in two different spots during the same incident as a kid. The arm needed to be 100% stabilized to heal so I had a ridiculous cast that went from my hand all the way up to my shoulder. It was the worst.

The only parts I remember about the incident is being in the hospital and the doctors cutting off my shirt, and them trying to knock me out with morphine or something similar, but I wouldn't go out, so the whole thing is very hazy. I can remember hearing the bones grinding together when they were setting it though. Ugh.

It took a couple of months to heal. I was playing baseball and I look a line drive off the spot that was broken like a week after getting my cast off and it was perfectly fine. Bones heal back stronger than before they were broken.

Broke my left arm when I was like 5. That pain was one of the worst I felt in my life. I still remember how sharp the pain was.

The damage from it is still with me. It feels really off using my left hand for certain things like dribbling a basketball.

Broke my arm during camping once and my nose a couple times.

My arm was a mess as although it was a clean cut through both forearm bones, the doctor that set them initially in the ER did a poor job and they were healing improperly, so a few weeks after being in a cast and X-Rays showed how misaligned the bones were regrowing, it was decided they had to be rebreak the arm and re-set. That sucked.

Other than that one instance, the healing experience wasn't too bad. A few months in a cast and that was the end of it.

When I was in 8th grade I broke my collarbone playing football. I went up for a catch and this 6th grader built like a Machoke threw me down to the ground from mid-air. Since you can't really put the bone in a cast, the doctor gave me a device to wear that resembled a bra with very thick straps. My mother didn't make me go to school for more than a month because of that thing.

Right forearm, playing no rules hands behind your back soccer for the cross country ski team in 45 degree weather. Fell back on it and took a week for me and my mom to realize it wasn't a sprain(I have good pain tolerence). Was in high school, had my arm in a cast for about a month, when it came off we realized something was off with my arm, went back for a X-ray. Discovered the other bone was bent 18 degrees. They had to go in break it, put in a metal bar, and I was in a cast for another month or so, the. I discovered that I was allergic to temporary stitches a size well. Was about ten years ago now

SolVanderlyn said:

I fell down a huge flight of stairs. Thought it was a muscle sprain at first, and even went to sleep like normal that night. Next morning I realized I couldn`t move my arm.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Damn, that's two members of the bucket who have lost a fight to a flight of stairs recently.

Hope it heals well mate.

Knight in Shining Armani said:

Took a trip to snap city two years ago after arm wrestling.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Now that's metal as fuck.

Meffer said:

I had a hairline fracture near my left elbow. It hurt like hell. Took a few months to heal.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I had this too, fell while ice skating. Took about a month to heal, it stopped hurting after about 2 weeks.

I broke my right middle finger a week before I started at university. It was very difficult and painful to write, so that sucked. I had to do physical therapy for several months, which also sucked (it was a compound fracture that had to be pinned back together so the recovery was involved).

My finger bends about 90% of what it used to and is a bit crooked. However, my handwriting was completely transformed and I get a lot of compliments for it. I can't complain too much!

Dislocated my elbow so badly that the bone popped out of my skin and broke a piece of the bone off. Had to have two pins put in and recovery took like a year with rehab. Still hurts when it rains and the scar feels tingly. It's always going to be weaker than my other arm.

Broken right upper arm, broken shoulder, broken right wrist, broken left wrist twice, broken left fibia and tibia, broken left femur, broken left side of hip, broken about 3 bones in my left foot, broken a few fingers, broken an left ankle twice, torn my ACL and MCL in my right knee, a shit ton of broken ribs over the years, and broken nose three times.

All but a few of the fingers, the ankle once, the ACL and MCL, some of the ribs, and two of the broken noses were all in the same accident tho. Got hit by a car doing 50 in a 30 while I was riding my bike when I was 13 years old. Ended up with swelling in my brain and a brief coma, and some internal injuries too, but it was mostly my limbs that took the worst of it. Got hit from the left, shattered my left leg, flipped onto the hood and went headfirst into the windshield, rolled off the windshield onto the roof, fell onto the trunk, and rolled off the back with my arms and legs straight out. Pretty much shattered my right arm, had breaks in 7 places and it had twisted completely around twice.

Now I'm 33 and have metal plates in my arm and leg, pins in my hip, permanent visual impairment due to damage to my cortical nerves, and live in pain pretty much every day of my life. I was almost done with my growth spurt thank goodness, but I am still just shy of an inch taller in my right leg than I am in my left where all the metal is.