Badly broke my leg 8 weeks ago at BPW, tibia plateau fracture which needed a few steel plates and screws to hold the bone together. The steel work won't be coming out and I appreciate that this is going to be a long recovery but wondered in anyone had some advice having recovered from it and hopefully back to riding?
I broke my tibial plateau (well *I* didn't, the driver of the Peugot 405 estate that ran me over did) just over twenty years ago. Spent 13 weeks in plaster. Sod all physio from NHS plus there wasn't much private physio around in N. Wales at that time. My plaster was one that was articulated at the knee - I did so much walking that I broke the thing!
Prognosis from a specialist was that I would have to give up both physical work (I was a dry stone waller at the time) and mountain sports within around ten years. Rationalised things in that if I gave up physical work and retrained then I could keep doing the sports stuff for twenty years 😆
Ten years after the accident I did the Bob Graham Round - 66 miles and 28,000ft of up and down around the Lakeland fells.
Then I started to get problems in the opposite knee and hip - turned out to be arthritis in the hip, gave up running and concentrated on biking. Had the hip replaced three years ago this November, was back riding on the turbo in six weeks and on the road once the ice had gone in about three months. Currently average around 10,000Km riding a year which is a mixture of road and MTB.
You'll feel depressed now that you can't do things but slowly you'll adapt and begin to do things again. Don't think back to "I used to be able to do xxxx", do what you can now, accept it for what it is, you are living in the now not the past. It's quite possible that you'll get close to your previous level (depends on age, fitness, etc_ and biking isn't going to put the same impact stresses on the fracture that running would. Being positive is way more important in the long term than thinking about not being able to do stuff - look at Martyn Ashton as an example.
That is a great reply thank you.
The general prognosis is very similar, possible problems in the long term but in the short term its just going to be about getting used to the new leg. In a brace at the mo that lets me move the knee, slowly getting some weight on it so hopefully only another couple of months before I am walking again.
Never done any running so just cycling I'm worried about, plan is to build up some strength again on the road bike before taking the mountain bike out for a bash.