Hi STW, looking for some advice really for the recovery times for this sort of injury.

Unfortunately for me I fell off the bike on Saturday and suffered a dislocation of my foot and a fracture to the Tibia and Fibula bones.

Also if you had a similar Injury do you use SPD’s still or Flats?

TIA

Phil

(Pic can be added if need be but it’s bloomin orrible)

I broke both quite cleanly playing football sixteen years ago. Had a metal pin put in from knee to ankle. Was on crutches for several months and over a year before I was healed. However that was actually what led to me taking up cycling as I couldn’t run and so started biking just to get fit again. Found out I enjoyed cycling more than football.

Longer term though there’s been not the slightest problem and I can bike in flats or clipped in no problem.

Hi, best wishes for a swift recovery. I did this about 20 years ago. I fell awkwardly playing 5 a side and split the base of the bone on the outside of my left ankle, as well as breaking the inner one (not sure which is which!) I still ride a reasonable amount, but tend to use flats off road as my left knee is very sensitive to cleat positioning, although I do use speed play frogs occasionally as they seem to have a lot of float in. Has it been operated on? I used a turbo trainer a lot after my accident as it took several months to get enough movement back into my ankle to ride off road comfortably. I still have a plate and pins on both bones. They’ve never really caused me any grief, but I suffer a bit when running off road as the flex ion in my ankle isn’t quite what it was. Happy to discuss further via email if it would be helpful.
Cheers Mark

Cheers man, this is what I have had to have done.

Xray Picture

Was just concerned about the twisting of the foot with SPD’s.

Thanks Mark, yes they Plated it and Screwed it together (within 24hrs).

Hopefully the recovery will be swift. The Surgeon has said after 2 weeks he wants a New Brace to be used on the foot to aid movement (no load bearing but limits to make it move more).

I broke both my femurs and left tib and fib.. So my recovery was maybe a bit longer as I was in a wheel chair for a month then 9 weeks on crutches, which was meant to be 12 weeks.

All I can say is if possible, make sure they fix you up with proper alignment. Me knees suffer because of my bones not being in proper alignment. Medial compartment gets loaded more than the lateral..induces more cartilage wear!

I’ve broken my right tibia twice and fibula once racing mx 18 and 11 years ago. First time, both tib and fib, clean break. Got fitted with an external fixator. Looked pretty scary but I was weight bearing the day after the op so muscle wastage was kept to a minimum and flexibility was good. Never had any issues with it other than the bone scar tissue on the pin sites used to cause skin rubbing on my mx boots.
Second time was a bit worse. Wrapped my leg sideways under the bike and crushed the top of the tibia. Was rebuilt with bone from my hip and plate and screws like yours. Took a long time to recover. Couldn’t cycle a bike for 9 months because I just couldn’t make my foot go round in circles and stay on the pedal. Used to wear a knee brace for any action sport for about 2 years. Eventually I got strong and confident enough to not use the support. Court sports are ruled out for me as the jarring and twisting effect on the knee causes it to swell. Rehab was a stationary bike, then turbo trainer at home then outdoors, which ultimately led me to ditch mx and start mountain biking properly.
The pins and plate in bone fractures rarely seem to be an issue, it’s the cartilage and tendon damage that needs managing carefully and possibly adjustment to your lifestyle to preserve them.

I always use spds, shimano. Just set the tension to low to start with and build your strength and confidence and gradually tighten them up to the level you want. Don’t rush it.
Cycling is an excellent rehab method as it’s basically very low weight bearing

Oh yeah I’ll second that, I used the turbo trainer every day when I was weight bearing.. That did spped my recovery up.

I fractured those on my left leg – had unclipped and somehow my left foot got stuck into something on the ground. Was told that it was very similar to football injury so it was quite routine to fix.

I was very happy to get rid of pins and screws, mine bothered me quite a bit.
Bit of advice, recovery will take a while and it really pays to do the exercises to regain full range of movement.

cycling incident, double fib single tib break about a year ago, metal work fitted both sides after a week once the swelling went down, cast for 9 weeks, support boot for a month after that,

while the bone is fixed, the muscle damage takes a lot longer, its still stiff (fnarr) first thing in the morning, if i sit in certain positions, i cannot run but i think thats psychological

i went straight back to spds but wound right off – shimano mtb ones are fine, but i can only just click out of my Look road ones at lowest tension – around 9nm i think

biggest issue for me was from going from 200 miles a week to zero, then the psychological battle to get back on the bike, which is still ongoing, when something stops being a habit, its hard to get that habit back IME, and i missed all them lazy summers days, and trying to motivate yourself for a ride when its wet and cold, well its easier to stay indoors and find an excuse,

my advice is just let it fix, don’t set yourself any short term goals as it will mess with your head if you don’t meet them

I broke my fib and dislocated my ankle on February 8th this year. Stupid BMX accident….I’ve got 7 screws and a plate.

I shouldn’t have been but I was walking on the cast after 3 weeks. Cast was off on March 30th and I managed 22 miles to a trail centre, round the blue and home the day after the cast was off.

I only broke the fib which doesn’t take much weight but yours maybe different due to the tib break. Take your time though, you’ll be back before you know it

I broke my tibia and fibular about 5 years ago in a MTB crash. Also broke across the ankle joint, failed to unclip and turned my foot 180 deg.
I went straight into an external fixator which as mentioned above looked awful but wasn’t too bad to live with. I wasn’t able to weight bear on mine though as the fixator went from knee height and all round my foot. Didn’t mind the pins in my leg and ankle, but had 6 pins through my foot which was really freaky. Also fitted with plates and screws which will never come out.
I started riding on the turbo straight after the external fixator was removed, that was clipped in and had no issues due to float etc. Although I did have to move my cleats a bit as I am sure they put my foot back on straighter that it was originally.
Didn’t feel confident enough to go on the road as I couldn’t unclip as didn’t have the strength in the ankle to turn it properly. Think I first rode off road about 6 months later (very easy stuff) and that was on flats. Never really rode with flats before the accident so found this very strange, but a lot better if you invest in good pedals and decent flat pedal specific shoes. I switch between SPD and flats for off road now but I still ride flats for technical riding now as my ankle has never been quite the same and find SPD’ stiff shoes/clipped in a bit harsh on the ankle.
I did change to Time ATAC pedals for clipping in as found these had a bit more float.
They told me after my accident that it would take about 2 years to get over it and that turned out to be true. But still have limited range of movement in it and it aches after a lot of riding.
However all that said I still do pretty much everything I ever did on the bike and I was surprised how quickly I regained my fitness.

Shattered them playing rugby about 25 years ago; near no-one. Just turned my body, but foot stayed still. Quite painful really.

In hospital for a week or so, groin high plaster for 4 months, year off rugby. Still got a dent in my shin (which apparently is stronger than the rest of the leg), calf still doesn’t look normal (probably due to the dent).

As mentioned though, muscles take longer than bones. Coming out of the plaster, the leg looked horribly thin. Running can still be painful over ~10miles, but cycling is good.

To stop a limp, just pretend you’re always on a tight rope – one foot always directly in front of the other. It works.

The trouble with an ankle dislocation/fracture (been there!) is that the whole jigsaw never quite goes back together the same way, esp. if you have significant ligament/tendon damage which you almost certainly will. So rehab is crucially important in order to retain the range of movement and flexibility, and it can’t start early enough – they started on me the day after the op, and I had an x-ray that is eerily similar to yours! I was horrified at the time and it was not pleasant at first, but so so important.

Short term: In my mid 20s recovery was many months, it was over a year before I was playing rugby again, and 18mths before I was actually fit. Then I had the meccano taken out which wasn’t that big a deal.

Medium term: I had no real problems once the initial recovery/rehab was done. It was that which got me into cycling! I’ve since done many triathlons, run up to half marathon distance, skied half the Alps and climbed mountains. The ankle/foot has a tendency to swell and rapidly goes numb in the cold or in ill-fitting shoes, which is down to impeded circulation caused by the interventions. Manageable though.

Long term: this is where I am now, mid-40s. I have always had slightly restricted movement in the repaired ankle, which causes unnatural stresses and strains. Over time this has caused bone spurs and thickened ligaments, both of which combine to make running an ordeal now. So I don’t run. Not had a problem on the bikes.

Around about the time I did mine, Ieuan Evans (sp? the great Welsh wing) did his in a very similar way – he was back playing in 3-4mths I think, truly extraordinary. But it shows you what’s possible!

it all depends on how badly it’s been broken. I did mine in Nov 1999 and was still walking with a limp in Feb2000 and it was probably Mar or Apr before I was back on the bike. The problem I had was that when I fell off my bike the right hand pedal struck the ground with such force that the tibia and talus hit hard together and parts of the bone fragmented into the cartledge, as well sending my foot at a 90′ angle so that it was pointing at three o’clock which also left the tibia and fibula badly broken needing plates and pins to hold them together and significant ligament damage. Nobody knew at the time until the cast came off and I discovered the joint wasn’t moving very well at all. Eventually after months of complaining about it I got an MRI scan done, the metalwork was removed and I had an arthroscopy to remove the fragmented bone. This also involved removing cartledge that the bone had become stuck in. anyway so it was probably sometime around summer 2001 when this was done and it was 2003 before I began running again. Around 2008 /2009 I was running a 41min cross country 10k then I started to develop calf injuries in the other leg and now I don’t bother running more than 2miles or other things start to twinge like hamstrings and hip flexors.

I did mine (both bones, down by the ankle) when I was in my early 20s. Pinned and plated (still in there). That ankle has been noticeably bigger than the other ever since and has a restricted range of movement.

For a while it didn’t bother me too much once I’d got through the recovery stage. I ran marathons (I even got a good for age time at one point) and ultras, and it wasn’t much of an issue. I then got a hamstring issue which I just can’t shift (we are talking about 5+ years of it coming back every time I try to start running again) which essentially seems to be a slight non-alignment of the foot/ankle causing issues back up my leg.

The good news is that cycling is fine now I’ve spent a bit of time setting up my bike. Being clipped in is not an issue at all.