Broken pelvis – realistic timescales for rehabilitation and recovery

Best mate came off his Road bike today( I wasn’t there-mtb only for me) and has broken/fractured his pelvis.he has done really well the last 18 months going from over 20 stone down to low 17s and really changing his lifestyle which I am really proud of him for doing.
I know this is serious but unsure of the level of damage yet as I have only just found out, anyone got any real world experience of the road to recovery?

Took friend of mine about a year to get pedalling again, it depends on extent of fractures and surgical fixation I wish him the best

I have no idea how long it takes but Goodness Me- I bet that hurt. All the best from the Costa del Carmarthenshire to him and I hope he recovers soon.

As a Guideline from experience ( I’m not a Orthopaedic doctor) the patients I’ve nursed for pelvic fractures have spent the first few days in traction before Wrightington (specialist Orthopaedic Hospital in Wigan) have checked X rays scans before deciding on either Surgery or none surgical treatment.

As a baseline we have a patient with a similar injury, he has spent 8 weeks on traction and is now full weight bearing on his left and partial weight bearing on the fractured side. Using a Zimmer frame. He is doing very well and 70 year old. Aiming to discharge in two weeks.

I must stress everyone is different though. I did Tib and fib fracture which required nailing when I was 18 took 3 months to recover and back on the bike. This time Fibula fracture and knee ligament damage took 5 months to be back on the bike. I’m 10 years older now.

I broke my pelvis on 3rd March this year motocross in.
I was in hospital in Norwich for 14 nights. Had 3 plates and 12 screws surgically inserted to stabilise it.

I was told no weight bearing on leg for 3 months.
Spent the first few weeks out of hospital using a zimmer frame and then progressed onto crutches, using a wheelchair to get about me flat with food and drinks. Impossible to carry a drink whole using crutches!

I had a further 2 months on crutches and then 3-4 week’s learning to walk again.

I was back on he bike at 6 months, just slow and steady mind tho, building up to longer rides.

I’m now pretty much fully recovered and back out on the dh bike doing bigger stuff than I’ve done before the accident.

I was very lucky, being told I was 3 my uses away from death due to internal bleeding and had some if the best surgeons fixing me (all for free on our amazing nhs) and followed it up be paying for some great physios to get me going again.

Depending where you are in the country I VERY HHighly recommended going to see Brian Simpson physio in ipswich. He’s the only man in the country that can do what he does and treats alot of high trauma sports athletes.
I also spent 34 hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Message me I’ve you want more Info or if your mate wants to talk to someone about it first hand, more than happy to offer advice based on what happened to me.

The black lines are all the breaks in my pelvis

+1 for Brian Simpson

It truly does depend on the fracture & where abouts, the pelvis is a big bone. I broke mine when knocked off bike about 10yrs ago but it was a fracture of the iliac crest which doesn’t really do much except give your hips the width. I was off the bike for about 10-12 weeks (suffered other injuries also) no hospitalisation etc just a crutch & pain killers.

I broke mine in 2008 – stable fractures of the ischium and sacrum, plus a torn sacro-iliac.

No surgery, I was walking (very painfully) within a few days, but ordered to rest for the foreseeable future – ended up off work for 8 weeks, and was back riding in 12 weeks.

In the same accident, I broke a meta-carpal (for which I was in a cast for 4 weeks) and tore my left supraspinatus (top muscle in rotator cuff – which didn’t properly heal for a year and a half!!)

Dave

I can’t answer that directly but I can give you some encouragement from experience!

On September 1st I broke my back supermanning off my mountain bike and having a severe head/ground interface. I fractured three vertebra and then had to wait for 11 days for the operation which put an internal brace on my spine, losing an amazing amount of muscle mass.

My usual commute is 20 miles from Surrey in to Wapping on a lightweight road bike (not bad for an old guy though I do say it myself), but today I managed to get back in the saddle on my Brompton and cycle from Waterloo station across to work. It was only 15 minutes or so, but felt absolutely wonderful, having spent the last three weeks coming in on the tube (blerch!) So you’ve got that to look forward to and all the pain you’ll go through between now and then will seem worth it.

Take the meds, do the physio and be patient. It’ll all come right. 😀

3 friends with broken pelvises – 2 were smashed pretty badly – tree fell on their tent. Took them a year to get back to walking normally, but they’re still a way from from full strength, 18m later, they’re going for walks a few miles long and look OK, but quite a bit of pain and get tired quickly. Still a way away from 100% strength without pain.

Another had a couple of neat fractures of tailbone and pelvis, she’s back riding 4 months later.