ended my ride abruptly today,just wondering if I broke my wrist or just hurt it
I can touch my little finger with thumb and it doesnt hurt if i dont try to do anything with it. hasnt swollen up yet
was an hour ago and i drove home in traffic, hurt a bit trying to change gear. took ibuprofen and ice on it now
should i just rest and see if it gets worse, and get an x-ray in morning?
I hit it quite hard when i got off the bike

Any have any definite advice?
strap it up?

Wrong place to ask, really. I’m sure the “if you’re not dead you’re wasting the NHS’s time” brigade will be along shortly…

I’ve broken my wrist and thought it was just sprained. Fortunately someone made me go to hospital fairly promptly for an x-ray where a displaced fracture of the ulna and radius was diagnosed, and I was admitted for pinning and plating.

However, my wrist just hurt a bit and I could still move it through a normal range of motion. It also didn’t swell very much. So my advice is that if it’s still bad tomorrow, you should trundle down to A&E, accept that you’ll be bottom of the queue for an x-ray, and get it checked out.

thanks for sharing your experience flapheroff,good to know that you didnt have all the “classic” symptoms shown on the internet
i saw the doc yestrday and didnt want to waste more of the nhs’precious time, i realise they had a job to do.
also the rush hour traffic isnt where i want to be with my wrist.
the alcoholic related stuff will be there later so like you say I’ll see how it is in the morning, cant see me working tomorrow now

I sprained mine badly at the end of May. Yes get it x rayed , but in the mean time RICE it. For 72 hours at least.

I was icing mine regularly for three weeks afterwards, took approx 4 months to heal properly . I managed to race an enduro a week after doing it but I shouldn’t have really. I used a 661 brace over the summer. Heal fast!

i put a bandage on it for now
i’ll try to rest it, honest!!

I had a hard fall a few years back and it just felt like a bad sprain.

No swelling, full movement and no real issues, but a general dull and achy pain.
After a week of it not felling any better I went to get an X-ray to find it was broken.

Give it a day or two and if it doesn’t feel any better go and get it checked out. Prepare for a wait and don’t go to A&E when it’s busy on Friday/Saturday nights

I’m a few weeks ahead of you!

Was persuaded by a few stories of undiagnosed fractures to go and get an X-Ray.

Went to my local (Edinburgh) Minor Injuries Clinic, managed to skip the faffing with the GP which everyone seemed happy about.

They had a look and warned that typically they wouldn’t X-Ray an injury older than 3 weeks as they are technically still an ’emergency’ department, so don’t wait too long!

Either way, they obviously liked me so X-Rayed it, which confirmed the nurse’s suspicion that it wasn’t any sort of fracture.

General pointers for her were pain located in several locations, including the opposite side of the wrist from the scaphoid, as well as the top/bottom of wrist and below the scaphoid area. Basically lots of damaged tendons from bringing 13 stone to a dead halt against a tree with one hand!

Good thing about tendons is that lots of immobilisation is not required, obviously not overdoing things but it means I can ditch the splint etc. and start gentle exercise again like swimming, spin etc.

Moral of the story, probably best to get checked out sooner rather than later.

If after any swelling has gone down, you cannot bend your straight hand back on itself as much on the wrist that didn’t get injured, you have probably done something to it.

I can bend my left hand back on itself to ~80 degrees, my right hand only ~50 degrees (both go a bit further if I push with the other hand). A relatively minor consequence of my RTA from almost three years ago.