Had a plate on my collar bone a year or two ago and hardly been riding since the op,but yesterday did a couple of hours xc.
I could feel a slight jarring during the ride and this morning every time I pick something up or lean on my arm it seems like somethings loose or twisting in there.
Is this normal, will it always be like this?
Its slightly painful enough to stop me doing anything heavy

I had a plate put in after a non-union 10 years ago. I still get the occasional pain from the fracture site if using the arm at an unusual angle ,after mowing the grass for example, and if I do bit of hammering the shock loading makes it painful. But it is usually transitory and goes away after a few hours. I don’t feel that the bone is moving relative to the plate though.
I fell off the bike about 18 months after the plate was put in and had a sharp pain so had an x-ray that showed a hairline fracture but as the plate and screws hadn’t moved I just left it to heal again

Most of the time I can’t tell mine’s there and it’s been that way since a few months after it was put in (about 7 years ago now). The only thing that gets it/me going is when one of the kids tries to climb on my shoulder and presses the flesh over it down, hard, on one of the edges of the plate.

I still have discomfort and occasional proper pain from mine almost two years on.
I’m learning to ignore it as I think it’s always going to give me grief to some degree.
Riding and trail building seems to make mine feel a bit better until I do to much then it hurts like ****.
Three rides in a row seems fine. The five rides in a row the other week less so.
Also carrying large rocks I’ve just dug out doesn’t seem to help. 🙄

I don’t remember mine causing much discomfort, but I was advised to have it removed after a couple of years because with my fondness for dangerous activities I was likely to break it again. The surgeon said that it could be really messy with a plate and six screws in there so it was better to take it out. Of course, he could just have been drumming up a bit of extra business.

Mine hurt for literally years after surgery. Not badly, but for at least 3 years I was very aware of riding with a rucksack or similar.

Now it’s fine.

I think it will improve. I had a plate in my ankle and could feel it for the first few years. My collar bone wasn’t plated but set with lump in it and if I wore heavy backpack it was sore; that went away after 5 or 10 years.

Most of the time I can’t tell mine’s there and it’s been that way since a few months after it was put in (about 7 years ago now). The only thing that gets it/me going is when one of the kids tries to climb on my shoulder and presses the flesh over it down, hard, on one of the edges of the plate.

This is my experience to a ‘tee’. The only difference is that mine happened about 12 years ago now.

It was also suggested to me that I should have it removed at some point, but a surgeon friend of mine said not to bother. Even if I even fell and injured it again, the plate would not pop out or cause extra grief.

My surgeon told me it’s not uncommon to remove them after a while. Sure enough, 18 months on it began to feel too close to the surface and was removed. My shoulder/collarbone have been fine since.

3 and half years since I had mine done and I barely notice it…apart from the lump on top of my shoulder.

Only time it gave me grief was after falling on it again last summer, thought I’d messed it up as it didn’t feel quite right for a while afterwards.

To be honest though I don’t work it that hard, mostly just road miles and a few squats over winter.

Maybe get it checked out?

its been giving me a bit of grief this evening at work. Had to be careful how I lift fairly light stuff
By the time the NHS check it out it may be better, or I’ll have worse things that need their attention

Mine had to come out after getting infected a few weeks after the original surgery.

With mine, I was sometimes aware of fibrous tissue pulling / tugging / running over the screws. So the plate wasn’t moving but it still felt weird.

I’d have thought pain / discomfort / numbness is probably ok. Any movement a year down the line is probably not. If you think it’s unstable then definitely seek help.

I have the same experience as a few above. Was uncomfortable for a few (3-5 years), but now (8-9 years later) it is only noticeable when I carry a heavy backpack or something hits/rubs it.

My first plate failed shortly after being put in.

The senior surgeon did the second op to insert a more substantial plate with more screws and retaining washers on the screws. He said that it was far less likely to fail, but more likely to cause ongoing issues and may need to be removed.

However, he also said if I could live with it then it was best to leave it in. If it was taken out, the six screw holes would leave my collarbone like a Swiss Cheese and likely to shatter if anything happened before the screw holes had fully healed. There was also a chance that some of the screw holes would not fully heal as the blood supply to the area is poor.

I left it in.

PS – I do have some minor nerve damage ( a small dead spot of skin where I can’t feel anything and the ability to touch my shoulder and create a ‘fizzing’ sensation further down my arm). Nerve damage is apparently common when they operate on a shoulder so it was another reason to minimise the number of times I was opened up.

EDIT – This surgery was the reason for part of my username. I registered while I was recovering

Mine has been in since 2015 and I rarely get any discomfort from it. Very occasionally I get a sensation in that side of my neck collar, but nothing particularly unpleasant. I can happily carry big rucksacks so I guess mine will stay with me

Had mine in since 2015. I can feel it if I press on the skin, and occasionally the area over it feels uncomfortable, but there’s quite a loss of sensation in the skin over that part of my shoulder, so it feels “strange” rather than painful.

I do an amount of target rifle shooting, and if I’m using a “bumpy” round (lot of recoil) I sometimes pay for it afterwards. The rifle butt doesn’t actually contact the bone, it nestles in a pocket formed by the top of the pectoral muscle, but the whole shoulder area can become tender.

Mrs100th has one permanently in place and a large area of numbness. It’s like a piece of Meccano just under the skin. Looks more painful than it is but it does give her gyp.

They did remove it when healed. The pop of it rebreaking when she moved in bed woke me up. As did the scream.

I have one (along with daft screws that are too long) and ive decided to leave it in.

first few years it was very painful and susceptible to temperature variations. It took a few years for it to settle. not it just hurt when i carry stuff on it (like the kid) or temperature changes.

I had one put in in Mallorca after a crash when I broke my clavicle and scapula; the consultant I saw in Fracture Clinic when I came back to the UK looked at the x-ray and the scar and said “did they get the local butcher to do it?!”

It held the bits of my clavicle together enough for them to knit together, but at least one of the bolts was in wonky and stuck up enough to make a lump under my skin that was not comfortable – the whole plate seemed to be in pretty much the ideal place to rub on rucksack straps, seatbelts, shirt collars, etc. so at my one year follow-up appointment I asked if it could be removed.

It felt SO MUCH better after it was removed, the discomfort went away within a few days and the surgeon also neatened up the scar tissue where it had been “cauterised into one thick lump” by the first guy in Mallorca, so the layers could move over each other, which helped the mobility as well.

If you’ve got problems with the plate and / or the scar, especially if it feels like something’s loose, make an appointment with your GP and get a referral to fracture clinic / ortho to get checked out.

And, for what it’s worth, the experience with the hospital / clinic / surgery here made me MASSIVELY grateful for the NHS – it felt like a real first world privilege to get a non-essential operation free of charge that made life more comfortable.

Hey… do I have the oldest one!?
Plate and 7 or 8 screws were installed after breaking into several pieces in January 2000 (Snowboarding).
It’s been pretty comfortable really. Some rucksacks cause a problem if the straps press on the end of the plate or screwheads. Slight numbness beneath clavical too.
Over the years it has only flared up following further impacts. I tore the rotator cuff of the same shoulder 4 year’s ago (Supraspinatus and sub-scap). That has been far more painful and does cause me grief.

Not collar bone, but my ankle was pinned and plated around 2005. The pin was removed, plate left in. Anything that involved high impact was pretty painful for a while. Snowboarding was excruciating for a few years, presumably it takes a while for the bone to fully harden and mould around whats there.

These days I only notice it when the weather changes or something rubs the skin against an edge of the plate.

its been bad at work today, I couldnt lift the work, it wasnt heavy but lifting my hands past shoulder level hurt.
Id say the plate is now more prominent than last week, on the neck side, so I better get it checked
Thanks for all the replies

Im being referred back to orthopaedic..
no ideas on timeframe though!

Looks like I’ll be waiting a long time for that Xray

Good shout – best to get it checked out just in case. 🙂