Crashed my DH bike during practice at Rhyd-y-felin yesterday. Lot of pain, felt worse than the usual tumble and winding, retrieved by the medics, carted off to Shrewsbury hospital, after a couple of x-rays and a ct-scan I’m now in traction dosed up on morphine facing 3-4 months of no weight bearing. I get a referral to some hip specialists on Monday apparently. In the mean time I’m facing up to a summer where I won’t be racing my first full length tri, or heading out to Norway for the masters world champs. Gutted isn’t even close to covering it.

Does anyone have any experiences with fractured pelvises and getting them plated? Fancy passing on a cheerful recovery story? Any decent computer games out at the moment?

ow ow and ow, no direct comparison,but hope it heals well.
For a long injury layoff I can recommend getting the Shield box set as 7 seasons of great cop TV to watch.
Good luck with the recovery.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckDlq-Eu_48[/video]

A guy I sometimes ride with (road) had an off coming down Honister Pass. He broke his pelvis in 4 places. He had it plated back together and is back riding again. He was confined to the turbo trainer to start with (following his surgeons instructions – who is also a keen cyclist) but now you’d never know, he’s back racing/time trialling/putting big miles in etc.

I fractured mine in 3 places in les gets in 2008.

Luckily for me it was all stable, so no operation needed. No/minimal walking for 6 weeks, and off the bike for 3 months.

I got lucky!

Dave

I fell 30ft from a tree in 1999 and fractured my pelvis, hip cup and jared the base of my spine. I spent 6 weeks in hospital with 4 of those on traction. Was walking fairly normally about 2-3 weeks after discharge and before my physic appointment; and was told that it was likely that I would get arthritis in my hip due to the excessive wear caused by the repair of the fracture. I didn’t need surgery for the pelvis and all is well after 14 1/2 years. I sometimes take glucosamine and chondroitin when training which helps but I think a lot of recovery is down to your mindset and determination to do what you can to assist both your recovery and any supplementary training to compensate for your likely initial period back onto bike etc…

Heal quick.

Hi, I broke my pelvis in 4 pieces last March. I was operated on and had 3 plates and 12 screws holding it together.
I was non weight bearing for 3 months, then allowed to partial weight bear for another month and then finally full weight bearing learning to walk again. After 6 months I was back on the bike, first of with just normal xc riding and im now back to full riding just as before and heading out to Morzine next month for a weeks dh.

Youll fix up fine, the rest time is shit. no 2 ways about it buts it is VERY imprortant to rest and do nothing to soon. I was very lucky that I had a very good surgeon ( Ben Davis from Norfolk Hospital) and brilliant advice/help from others.

I’d really recommend going to see Brian Simpson in Ipswich if you can. A physio that works with lasers and magnetic therapy to help promote bone growth, I also done 35 hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber ( dive chamber) Alot of top sports injuries use them to help get oxygen into the body.

Basically I changed my life completely after the accident, cut out all Alcohol, all sugars ( both well known “bone robbers”) eat really healthy, up calcium intake along with boron ( body needs boron to absorb calcium properly, found in red apples , grapes and other stuff)
The surgeon said it would be atleast 12months until I would be back on a bike, doing everything above i was back riding in september/october last year and now just over a year later really dont notice any difference at all now.

Its a long road but everthing is possible dude.

Awesome, thanks guys. I’ve got a acetabular fracture (spelling?) which apparently is a fracture of the hip joint socket. Will see what the specialist suggests on Monday, good to see people getting back to full strength. I had acl surgery on my knee a couple of years back, which taught me to appreciate good physio and doing what they asked.

What to do with the free time then? A drone maybe. How good/bad is Lego mindstorms stuff?

Tell me that’s your thumb….

Ha, yeah, it’s my thumb. Everyone asks that! Wish I’d took a different picture!

Hmm facing up to having to use a bedpan. Googled “how to take a s*** laying down”. This looks messy and awkward

Hmm facing up to having to use a bedpan. Googled “how to take a s*** laying down”. This looks messy and awkward

This was a real stigma for me in the first instance, but after realising it was a hell of a lot worse for the nursing staff than for me it made me appreciate the amazing roles they have, and since then made me a lot less prudish about dealing with health issues when they arise.

Also if your worried about the bed pan you may want to take another look at the title, people may think the first word caused the broken pelvis 😉

No helpful advice to offer, but just to say, heal up well.
From past injuries of my own, rest is the key to good recovery. No good to rush in to things.

That’s nasty. I hope you are on the mend.
I’ve had my monies worth out of the RHS, and Gobowen:-)
Bed pan, I got lucky there the pain killers put a stop to that for about a week:-0
It was having a wee for me. it just wouldn’t happen. Then when it did I had to call a nurse for another bottle as I couldn’t stop.

Oh happy days

Hmm facing up to having to use a bedpan. Googled “how to take a s*** laying down”. This looks messy and awkward

When I was in hospital for a week with a broken femur just over 2 years ago I didn’t actually manage a poo, it might’ve been due to the fact that during the week in hospital I didn’t actually eat anything & the food they gave me made me puke everytime (it didn’t help that come meal times there was the smell of the food that hit you first – sort of like the boiled cabbage school dinner smell) however one of the nurses there wasn’t happy for my to be discharged as I hadn’t had any bowel movements…. as I was so desperate to leave she ended up giving me some laxatives, these didn’t seem to have any effect, my argument being that having not eaten anything for a week there was nothing to come out…

So after I got home & enjoyed a sandwich & a packet of crisps, I spend the rest of the afternoon on & off the toilet at home, having only learnt to walk on the crutches that day….

Fortunately weeing in the hospital wasn’t such an issue as I woke up with a catheter. If you’ve currently got one in, don’t google how big they are on the inside, because there’s no way that would’ve gone in if I was conscious… & removal of it bought a tear to my eye & not because it was like an old friend leaving…

As others have said – take your time don’t rush your recovery – otherwise you’ll still feel the effects for years to come.

I broke my pelvis (similar to yours with a acetabular fracture) along with 7 vertibrea a few ribs and a shoulder socket 4 weeks ago, I got lucky in not needing surgery as everything was lined up where it needed to be and have just been given the all clear to ditch the crutches and start full weight bearing, this has all happened way quicker than I was originally told after my first ct scan and xrays etc.

I did spend 5 nights in hospital, with the first 3 of those dosed up to my eyeballs on morphine, I found that took care of the need for a sh1t, also not being able to get up helps as gravity plays a part in these things, a few days after getting up on crutches and being off the painkillers did have me doing the most monumental sh1t I’ve ever had mind, then it was just a case of working out how to wipe my arse whilst wearing a body brace and a neck brace, took some figuring out…

It’s awesome to hear about some positive outcomes. It looks like I might get away with no surgery, apparently the fractures aren’t as blown out as they might be, which is good news 🙂
Managed to use a bedpan earlier, having not pooed for 3 days (crashed on sat morning before I had had a chance to drop the kids off). It all went a bit Glastonbury portaloo 🙁 nothing focuses the mind as you are hanging on to a monkeybar suspended above the bed starting to shake as you attempt to keep the weight off your sore hip, feeling the rapidly growing pile touch your arse. Boo.

I fractured mine on an MTB trip in the Swiss Alps – earned me a flight in an air ambulance to hospital.

It was two cracks down the right hand side – didn’t need surgery or anything, the only thing I could do was just rest. I could walk on crutches within a couple of days, it was about a month before I was back to limping around and could drive then back on a bike about 2-3 weeks after that.

It took me a year to get back to full cycling fitness though. From being able to hold my own in a 1st Cat road race I was going out the back door of 2nd/3rd Cat races for ages!

Bizarrely, it was exactly the same injury that a mate suffered in a MTB accident about 3 months before me, I’d had to call out the Mountain Rescue & Air Ambulance for him…