broken clavicle...surgery or not?

Elfie

Nah... You'll Be okay mate! My best wishes to you.

You can also check up on my story just a few post above. I bet i went thru all the possible hell that a surgery can ask for. And look at me now? I'm doing gre8.

Dustin07

yeah I saw that, I'm glad to hear that you are doing better now! The only real concern my doctor has is the potential for infection... but in someways, I'm glad that he is so worried about it, I know that he'll be carefull!

are you afraid of landing on the plate at all? that's one of my new concerns. I'm starting to have second thoughts just because I'm afraid of hitting the shoulder hard again snowboarding or bmxing. I'm investing shoulder/chest gear though and working on my own design as well, so hopefully that will help.


I've noticed after only 1 week of not using my right arm at all, that I've lost almost all mobility. it's very wierd and borderline scary as I used to workout a solid 5-6 days a week... oh well. I know that I can't jump straight into weights the day I get the plate installed, but It's good to hear that the added mobility might help avoid potential PT issues.


as some others have pointed out... I look forward to the day that I can start doing pull ups again. I worked very hard to get from 3 sets of 6 to 3 sets of 12 this year.

Elfie

Well my fren, All i can say is that to give it some good months even after it healed. I'm riding a motorbike(sportsbike) btw, so yea.. have not been doing any sort of stuns nor have i even done any workout. As for doctors, it'll be definately better if your doctor have done lot's of surgery before. And him showing alot of concern for you is a good sign. We all need a considerate and understanding doctor.

Actually, I do have flashbacks while riding... Horrible things like getting into another accident and breaking the same collarbone again. My doc also told me that in due of another accident, the plate might just slide(slit) across your throat and K. O. ( HOW CONVINCING IS THAT?!!!!) But... there's lots of people who have gone thru with it and have got back to sports.

Just make sure to heed your doctors advice & take real good care of yourself and your diet. Give it time to heal hard before jumping and pusing yourself to an early start. (Ask your doc on this aswell)

He might even recommend you some physio, but i've never done any physio, i'm an active person so yea my arms move alot..

Man... i can't wait to hit the gym once again.. Like u were saying, pull-ups and all that... damn.. i miss working out... i miss the way i looked before the accident.. I guess it's part and parcel of life... Life's a bitch, but someone's gotta go thru it.

CheerS!

Dustin07

I hear ya on working out, and it's only been 1 week for me! I used to lift a lot and cardio less, Now I guess I'll be doing a lot more cardio, a lot more stationary bike!

Dustin07

well, surgery appears to have gone well yesterday. Pain is minimal. However, dr. now wants me to wear the sling for 3 weeks.... ? oh well. I guess he was really happy about how it all went. He was able to even incorporate the tiny peice that broke off...

Elfie

That's good news. Speedy Recovery to ya!

leslye424

hello!! my names leslye and i was in a really bad car acident Jan 14, 2006. i broke one of ankles, fibula, radius and ulna (which has already required 3 surgeries, one more to go), and my collarbone. its been 6 months now and the doctors say its a non-union fracture and will require surgery in order for it to heal. ive been through enough this past year and i already have 2 nasty scars on my arm because of the multiple surgeries ive had on it. another scar on my shoulder is the last thing i want. im only sixteen, so the cosmetic aspect of surgery is disconcerting to me. i was wondering if you could send me any pictures of what your scar looks like, or at least describe how the incision looks (length, thickness) i know surgeons differ and people scar differntly, but a general idea of what i am to expect after surgery would be greatly appreciated. the doctor says its up to me whether i go throught with the surgery or not. i dont know about how it was in your case, but i can hardley stand the pain anymore. the peice of bone that broke off constantly clicks back and forth and causes unimaginable pain. i guess a battle scar beats the never ending battle of not having the surgery.
wishing you the best concerning your injury, Leslye
email: leslye03@hotmail.com

Dustin07

Sorry to be rude, But Leslye... is that feminine or masculine in this case? If you're a dude, why worry about scars? especially on your arm. And if really even for a girl a scar on your arm or shoulder isn't going to scare any guy away. might even get more attention

depending on how you heal the scar could be simply a line like a tattoo the length of the incision (3-5 inches?) or if you are a heavy scarer (like I am, I always get keyloids which are just extra scar tissue) it will look more like a worm of the same length permenantly attached.

check out Chris Klug's incision here: http://www.chrisklug.com/news.php?news_id=64

Mine is only a week old and already looks much better than that. I'll try to get a pic for you tonight. It's really very clean.



overall I chose surgery because of my age (23). I figured a few months of healing now, and again in a year when we remove the plate is better than 40 years of discomfort due to a misaligned heal. had I been 40-50yrs old I would probably have not got the surgery. at your age I would.

Dustin07

btw, Chris' stitch job isn't as good as mine was. I had only one long one that went through the whole wound and it's much cleaner. I'll try to get that pic for ya.

leslye424

thanx for the help!! and by the way im a girl lol.

jmocallaghan

Brother, let it simply heal as is without an operation. I race road, cross and mountain here in NC and in the real world I am a paratrooper jumping out of planes and wearing body armor (both hard on the sholders). While the surgery may help in the end (and I do sometimes wish I had it when I have to run a lot at work because it effects your runs believe it or not) it will take a lot longer to heal and rehablitate. You'll be fine...

Cyborg_Chippy

Hi All,

Came out of surgery myself on Saturday and started Physio almost immediately. Was wonder how it's going with you ex surgery types and whether you now have full mobility and how long you where undered going physio for?

So far I'm able raise my arm with out any pain to shoulder height at the front and side. But have been advised it will be at least another 2 week before I can get on the turbo trainer and many be another 5 weeks by for I can do any swim training.

2wheeljunky

So I just discovered this forum while doing a search about clavicle surgery.

I just couldn't resist the temptation to post since I probably have had more experience with clavicle surgery related to cycling injury than anyone here. I have had surgery for my clavicle THREE TIMES. If you are contemplating this procedure, you owe it to yourself to read this. Here’s my story…

On November 15, 2002, I ate shit over the bars while doing a series of jumps in the Santa Monica Mountains known as the Kenter Whoops, or Kenter Whoop De Doos. I was better than that mistake, but mistakes do happen and I hesitated off the lip of a fairly large jump. Came up short and went over the bars. I new something was wrong instantly. I drove myself home after some other guys helped me load my Enduro onto the top of my car. Once at home, I sat around the house in an extraordinary amount of pain for about an hour before I realized that I may actually have a significant injury that required medical attention.

X-rays at Cedars Sinai Hospital revealed a displaced fracture of the clavicle – I actually broke it in 2 places so it was in three pieces! Surgery was “necessary” - Vicodin was prescribed.

Two weeks later – the day before Thanksgiving, at UCLA Medical, I had the surgery which involved the implantation of a steel plate across the top of the bone to hold the primary fracture together. Secondarily, a rubber band was put in to hold the bone down and in place because the second break was on the bottom of the bone. This would ensure the bone would all fuse back together again.

I was told to wear a sling for 8 or more weeks, and follow up appointments were scheduled. About ten weeks later I started riding again – without the permission of my doctor.

On my fifth ride out, I was riding in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. I live near there and although it's illegal to ride a bike on the dirt there, I do it frequently.

So I am up at the top of the hill and I see this Japanese tourist. Then I see this flight of stairs made out of rail road ties right next to the Japanese guy. I had launched these stairs, and cleanly stuck the landing, SEVERAL times. Right next to the stairs is a little path that allows me to just ride around them.

I looked at the stairs...

I looked at the path...

I looked at the unassuming Japanese tourist and just couldn't resist the temptation to have a little fun and show off.

I did a point and shoot off the top of the steps and came up just a little short – which had happened before and I’d recovered. This time I must have feathered the front brake a little because the rear wheel kicked up off the bottom step and over I went. Low speed over the bars crash.

Now, this was not a very severe crash. I stood right up and wasn't cut or scraped or anything. I started to brush myself off when I noticed a sharp pain coming from my right shoulder. F@ck! I thought. I think I just re-broke the damn collarbone!

SO I got on the bike and rode angrily home.

In an unbelievable twist of sick irony, when I got home I had a message on my machine from my surgeon. His office had called to remind me of my follow up visit -THE VERY NEXT DAY!!! What are the odds of that!?

That night I realized that when I pushed on the inside of my collarbone I could now feel something inside grind and pop and shift. I was convinced I had re-fractured the bone.

So I went in the following morning to see the doctor and was forced, naturally, to tell him what happened. He was fairly displeased to say the least. We did some x-rays and they showed no sign of fracture... that was odd, I thought, because I could FEEL the damn bone moving around in there.

But you can't argue with the x-rays, I thought.

I told him I had some pain and was granted a virtually unlimited supply of Vicodin - to which I became completely dependant on over the following months. The doctor decided that, since there was no visible fracture in the x-rays, it must be the implant itself that was moving around and causing me pain. A second surgery would be necessary in order to remove the hardware and end my suffering. But we had to wait a few more months because the bone needed a little more time to heal up – according to him. I now suspect that he just wanted to see if it would stop bothering me on its own.

Three months later - now DEEP into a steady pattern of Vicodin abuse - I went under the knife again.

When I woke up the doctor was called in to see me.
He explained that although we couldn't see the fracture in the x-rays, I had been walking around with a broken clavicle for three months. Apparently, the bone had broken in a different position. What this doctor had failed to tell me was the following:

Steel implants used to mend broken bone can actually CAUSE fractures. You see, the collarbone has some natural flexibility. When you screw a rigid piece of steel to it, it no longer does and the normal capability of the bone to absorb shock by flexion is eliminated. SO what happens? The bone actually snaps at the end of the steel plate! I was, needless to say, extremely pissed!

He had just done a second fairly extensive implantation of yet another piece of hardware. YIPPEEE!! That meant that not only had I been misdiagnosed and walked around with a fracture for 3 freaking' months! I also now had another implant on my collarbone which could cause another fracture in the future!!! PLUS, I was being told I still couldn't ride a damn mountain bike for at least another 3 months, and I should maybe even resign myself to giving up the only sport I have ever truly loved!!! I wanted to kill a couple of radiologists just to watch ‘em die!!!!

So, what have we learned from this?



First off, surgical implants for displaced clavicle fractures will mend the bone, but they also provide you with a permanent weak link because of the steel plate. The collarbone is ALREADY a weak link in the human body. A shank of metal bolted to it just makes it that much weaker. The steel, and I know I am repeating myself here, can actually CAUSE FRACTURES during falls that would normally not be significant enough to break bone.



Additionally, if and when you do break the bone again due to the implant, it will DEFINITELY require surgery. This is because the bone will be broken and in there with it will be all that metal junk moving around and preventing it from EVER healing. As I experienced first hand.



SO…



I told you earlier that I had had 3 surgeries on the collarbone.

Well, I just had all the steel crap taken out four days ago. This was a completely voluntary procedure. I did this because of what I know about those implants. My new doctor tells me that once healed – it will take about 6 weeks for the screw holes in the bone to fill back in – I will be as good as I was before I ever injured the collarbone in the first place.



Yes, I could still break the bone. But it would be just like any other collarbone fracture. 90% of which do NOT require surgery.



My best advice? If your doctor thinks you may heal without surgery… let it heal naturally.



Having that metal in there forced me to hold back in my riding, snowboarding, and dirt biking for the last 3 years out of fear of hitting the ground on my right side. I knew that on any ride, all it would take was a minor crash on my right arm, an outstretched hand, or my right shoulder and I would be in hell all over again. If I had it to do again, I probably would have lived with the displaced fracture. I have since met a few guys – mostly dirt bikers – who have had bad collarbone breaks and never bothered with the surgery. They definitely have some mild deformation of the shoulder, but they move around okay.



If you do have a surgery done, just realize that you will have a weak link until you have the hardware removed. This second surgery can also be an insurance obstacle. I basically claimed the implant was causing me a lot of pain in order to get the thing covered by my insurance. They wouldn’t do the procedure just because of my lifestyle and the risk associated with leaving the implant in.

I know this was a long post, but I have never before told this whole story anywhere and figured what the hell. If it helps just one of you guys in you decision making about shoulder surgery I will be pleased.

And remember the golden rule:
“If it ain’t broke, fix it till it is!”

Dustin07

your post is kind of a compilation of everything I ready on a million different sites before I chose to have the surgery done. It will be nice for the next person who comes along and hasn't made a decision yet to have it all at one source! You've covered a lot of different aspects of the surgery!

I opted to have the plate put in as an insurance policy. I knew the risks involved with having it there during the upcoming snowboarding season, but I also knew that there was a strong possibility of the collarbone not every aligning and healing on it's own. after about 2 weeks mine was still a solid 1-2 inches separated even with the figure 8 brace. It just wasn't correcting on it's own.

So I had a choice...

Wait and hope that everyone connects within the alloted 8-12 weeks. at which point... if there is still no union of the bone, then have surgery.

OR, have the surgery now, and save myself a wasted 3 months of hoping it would eventually find itself and heal.

The strange part is, the dr. says the plate (as unnatural as it is) will help the bone heal in a more natural position. I'm not worried about looking funny, I'm more worried about backpack straps... so the plate was a good idea for me.

I'll have it removed in about 9 months. I hope to survive the snowboard season without any further breakage, then have the plate removed ASAP. probably the week after the slopes close locally, LOL.


I would like to know though, do you wear chest/shoulder protectors when you MTB? I've already picked out one for the snowboard season at sixsixone.com and I'm still trying to decided on what I want to wear while BMXing.