broken wrist fizzeo – what should I expect??

I did this:

Now have this:

I’m having it off in 4 weeks and have been told I’ll need fizzeo’n’that. What should I expect? and can I make it go away quicker?

E

My physio basically involved using a thera band, (big elastic band), and continualy doing reps with it, you stretch the band as the wrist strengthens to offer more resistance. Also rotating a hammer side to side, start with a claw and work your way to a lump etc…etc. I also bought one of those small grip strengtheners used by rock climbers, pretty cheap and helps.

As far as speeding it up, it all depends on how good a healer you are! My mate swears by a supplement called Cissus Quandralaris to speed up the healing process.

Another mate has good private health care and goes and sits in an oxygen tent!!!!!

I bought a good wrist guard that got me riding my bike before the doctor recommended 😆 Check out the ‘Bioskin Wrist Brace’, really thin so it will fit beneath existing gloves, all others I tried were really bulky and needed bigger gloves.

Avoid anti-flams like nurofen and ibrobufen, there’s an opinion that it slows bone repair. My surgeon’s advice when I did my scaphoid, didn’t need much physio though.

Finally a topic I know something about – I’ve done them both.

Firstly expect pain, the physio hurts more than the break.

Most of my pain came from the ligaments/tendons in my hand being tightened up while in plaster and having to be stretched.

The key movements are:
* move the hand from the wrist, forwards and back
* clench your fist (nails into palm)

Do this as much as you possibly can in the plaster and you’ll get yourself a head start. Keep the fingers moving.

I recall a moment when the physio said “on a scale of 1 to 10, how painful is that?”, I said 5, he said “ok we’re going up to 8”. He wasn’t kidding. It was only for a moment, you’ll be good.

Despite severe breaks both wrists are fully functional – if not 100% then 95%, it’ll do. One is a bit squiffy – the only negative result being my press-up days are over!

Also avoid co-codamol pain killers, they make you constipated, which is actually worse than the pain of the injury 😆

I had an almost identical break to the one you have posted.

I had my cast of 3 weeks ago and the hospital offered me bugger all in the way of physio, they just gave me a little brace and said keep it moving.

This weekend was my first proper ride where I felt I could go fast and hard downhill again.

Like has been said the worst part by far is getting the tendons moving again that have not moved for 6weeks+.

I bought one of those spinning gyro balls to strengthen my wrist, and just kept using it. The first small couple of ride it was horrible and hurt a lot, but then after a bath it felt better for it… you just got to use it.

The surgeon reckons that coz I did my radius and dislocated my perilunate as well as split my scaph in two that I shouldn’t ride until February.

The hammer thing sounds nice’n’cheap 🙂

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I broke my scaphoid years ago, getting the wrist moving again was the main problem.

I found that working the wrist in hot water allowed flexability to come back a lot quicker.

Don’t rush the recovery, you want that wrist to last you the rest of your life. Imagine if you fell off and damaged it again before it was healed.

Ianv – are you saying I should crack one out in the bath? 😆

that’s no good, the pages will get soggy in the bath 🙄

as above, start now
as much finger/wrist movement as you can within the cast, use a rubber band for strength exercises on each finger

i got/have a wrist brace to use for riding, but it takes out so much flexibility it was pointless.

it was over 7 weeks before i could pull brake lever or shift gears and then 9weeks till i was riding (gently) off-road again.

The surgeon reckons that coz I did my radius and dislocated my perilunate as well as split my scaph in two that I shouldn’t ride until February.

Listen to the surgeon then. Too much movement or impact may cause problems such as non-union of the scaphoid and possible avascular necrosis which is a far bigger problem…

Concentrate on gradual increases in strength and flexibility using theraband, gripping exercises and range of motion. The dyno balls are great but quite hard work – I wouldn’t use one until you have strengthened it up a bit first.

as an index for measuring the return to strength once the plaster comes off, the ‘holding a pint’ method works well:

to start with you can’t lift a penny, you sup your pint from the bar
amazingly one day you find you can lift a half, but you can’t see yourself ever lifting a pint again
then one day you can lift a pint! It’s weird because the day before you were nowhere near

I think you might be onto something. I just tried to lob a few arrows. It wasn’t until dart number #6 that I finally hit the board. This recovery malarkey isn’t fun.