Hi all, I broke my wrist, a radius fracture, about three months ago and had it pinned. Pins came out one month ago and I have a lot of the strength and range of movement back. It still feels stiff and painful however, I’d like the benefit of your similar experiences, how long does it take to get back to “normal”? I’m not expecting it to be like nothing ever happened but will it be months, a year before it stops hurting? Thanks.

I fractured my scaphoid and hamate last year. I was in plaster for 4 weeks did another 2 weeks road riding with splint then onto the trails. Had full mobility at about this point it took another couple of months to be perfect.

Fractured both radius and ulna on the right wrist and trapezoid of the left one in one crash…left was out of cast in 4 weeks and right was 8 weeks ( no surgery), left wrist took a few months to be totally hassle free but had to maintain flexibility exercises in the right one for 4 months at least and still have to go through them some days ( coming up 2 years in June). I had never broken any bones before so was a little surprised at how useless they were for such a long peroid, definitely recommend private physio sessions to help the healing process as who knows how long my recovery would have taken otherwise!

Hmm could be a long road I think – better get some physio booked!

Smashed my left wrist, cracked my right and shattered my clavicle in one shot at swinley. 1 wrist and the clavicle were plated and then the wrist plate was taken out after a year.

Properly, fully recovered after about 18 months with no aches, pains and felt fully back to normal (riding after 4 though)

1.5 years down the line from a distal radius fracture with plated repair (which will never be removed) – full range of movement and strength for a long time now and never makes any different to day to day life, but my bones ache every day, nerve damage on the back of my hand and fingers is as much of an issue as the aching bones. It probably wont get much better. I found physio largely pointless, they told me to do what I was doing naturally.

Surely its like having the double stranger.

Have you not had physio yet? You should have. I did the same as you a year ago. Cast off after five weeks, back to work after seven (I’m a dentist, light duties!). I had physio from the moment the cast came off – did exactly as they said on the advice of someone off here – and had 90% movement back in about 3 weeks. Strength has taken a lot longer, mainly because it still hurts so I have to force myself to use it. Back to biking almost as soon as the cast came off. Road is better as the position on a drop bar suits my wrist better. Spent most of last summer riding about on my cross bike on 35c tyres rather than swapping to narrower ones like I usually do.

A year on its almost 100% back to normal for movement – still slightly limited on turning the palm over as if taking change or holding your hand out for something. Still quite sore though and depends what I’m doing as to how sore it is. Still getting better. Strength almost back to normal – I went back to climbing about 5 months ago and it’s been surprisingly ok. Basically I don’t think about it now but I am aware of it still, especially when wrestling my teenage boys 🙂

Badly broke mine and had it plated – still hurts now and again now but mostly when it’s cold or I ‘jar’ it – did it in June 2009.

Took 4 months to get the feeling back in my hand, 6 months to feel confident in it. Tbh I’d knackered the elbow on my other arm at the same time which took 10 months to heal – although it’s stilll knackered.

The best thing I did to heal up was actually getting out on my MTB again, hurt like dry buggery at first but inside a few rides it was coming on nicely. Took the time to really sort out my brake lever position and I get less arm pain now than before the crash.

Ulnar and radius pinned and plated. 9 months before I was back on a bike

as soon as you are able masturbate furiously using only your damaged arm, to build back the muscles

broken scaphoid and capitate in my wrist last spring, 3 months in plaster (yes, 3 months!). Followed up with decent physio, now have full movement back and stronger than before. Did my first set of press ups last week, hurt less than my ‘good’ wrist!
But it did take a year of physio and strength training on it to get it to where it is. Don’t slack off in your recovery!

Thanks all! Sounds like 3 months in I am not doing too badly then, I can do about an hour on the bike before I have to stop. I can do a press up, can do a chin up, so all in all sounds like I am about as good as can be expected. I have pushed my hand back into day to day use quite hard so I have not felt the need for physio yet but I’ll go and get some expert advice on that to see what can be done to help the scar tissue and nerve pain to go.

Reverse Barton fracture in right wrist when I was 19. Screwed and plated.

Back on the bike within 2 months. Surgeon’s advice? “If it doesn’t feel right, stop. But it won’t break in the same place again”.

I’m still in two minds about getting it taken out (nearly 10 years later) as although it can be occasionally uncomfortable due to the screws passing all the way through and irritating the skin on the other side, it would mean an enforced 8 weeks off the bike.

27 years and counting…

Did mine about 7 y/o. Broke enough bones that they put a few screws and a ‘J’ plate, but no cast. Also holed my leg…

Spent a week in hospital (due to waiting for the op and infection in my leg) and then off work another 3 weeks.

After 6 weeks I had a consultation and on him commenting how well I was doing (I’ve more movement in the broken one than the other), he asked how I did it. When I told him he suggested that I give it a few more weeks before doing some light (road) cycling.

I went rather quiet; I’d already been MTBing the previous week plus had been back on my motorbike commuting for two weeks…

Every-so-often it aches, but nothing worse than my other bones/joints.

distal radius fracture, smashed to pieces actually, pinned and plated.
I had physio from the NHS, but to be honest it was a waste of my time as well as the physios. I knew the range of movement i expected to get back and pretty much how to go about it, so physio visits really only measured progress.

that progress was painfully slow
I used rubber bands and one of those gyroscope things

broke, august, just able to ride (road) in november, took the worst of the winter off and was fine riding off road when i got on the bike in Feb.
Full and proper press ups shortly after that.

aches and pains still – just over 3 yrs

Distal radius fracture, broken scaphoid, torn scaphoid-lunate ligament and broken capsule.
11 months out, 3 operations, lots of fizzeo and an epic blog.

Clicky for the last entry.

OP – most posters on here have done far worse injuries than you. Mine was exactly the same (in terms of what was done and management). At three months I was pretty pleased with progress. I would say improvement has been much slower since. If you’ve got this far without physio (and I’m amazed you weren’t sent straight away – I literally walked from the room having had the cast and wire removed to the physio appointment booking place, maybe because I’m ‘medical’) then you may not gain so much. The four basic movements are hand bent back, hand bent down, side to side (like waving) and turning over. Other than that I was given some rubber bands for strengthening but I’ve used a spring grip strengthener and gyroscopic thing more.

Hey Paul – yes the specialist showed me all those 4 key movements and told me to do them, and I have, plus day to day life battling my three small children and work etc. have been plenty to keep me busy in the hand movement stakes. Try changing a two year olds pooey nappy when he doesn’t feel like cooperating with a broken wrist, oh the fun.

Hence have not felt any real need for physio before now and judging from the above stories an OK recovery so far. I have never been a big fan of physio but this is the first injury where I have felt that there is a lot of slow recovery still to be done, hence its nice to get an idea of what is “normal” for this type of break. I broke Radius and Ulnar, intra-articular displaced… yes many of the injuries above do sound more serious.

Ah, I just stuck with the radius 🙂 but intra-articular. It’s not top trumps thank goodness!

😀 One of those times when I’m very glad not to have a winning top trumps card.. I broke my wrist in a rather hard snowboard fall onto ice, I think my wrist guard saved me from something more serious. I have since got some REALLY good wrist guards

radius, ulna, scaphoid and capitate resulting in a titanium screw and a couple of pieces of floating bone left in there. 18 months in and I am enjoying riding again, got 99% of movement back and just the odd tweak of discomfort. Strength is only about 70-80% though but I am working on that. Running my fork softer helped. I did physio in early days but I became a dad not long after the injury so it has been worked plenty anyway!

I broke my wrist in a rather hard snowboard fall onto ice, I think my wrist guard saved me from something more serious.

I fell off a rip-stik. No wrist guards. Came as a shock to find I could break things. If my children were still at the nappy stage they probably wouldn’t have been egging me on 😉