Fractured Tibia and Fibula (Broken Lower Leg Bones) with Fixation Surgery (Part 2) (more expensive, scan)

[Misterbadexample]

Originally Posted by tanntren04

Hi all, I was lookin for some info about my injury and stumbled on your stories so I thought I would share mine. Dec. 29 I was gettin off my kids bunk beds and fell. I broke my tibia and fibia. I was taken to the nearest hospital for x-rays and such at which time I knew it was broke but not the severity. My break was so severe they couldnt treat me, they admitted me and attempted to find a specialist who could. I had surgery the next day and I received 15 screws and 2 plates, I broke both bones clean in half and they also splintered in several places goin into the ankle joint, I was placed in a splint for three weeks. After that I received two casts and I was on crutches/NWB for 11 weeks. My 6-8 weeks turned into 9-12. At first it was really ruff feeling helpless but you gotta be a take charge person and look for optimism. I just got my cast off on 3/17/10 and I'm still gonna be on crutches with a walking cast for several more weeks. As you can imagine atrophy set into my leg but I can walk on it a little. Here's the kicker....no pt for me cuz I have no insurance.

Tanntren--
[ot] Nothing like a good tib/fib break to make one an advocate for single payer [/ot]

I'm not a doctor, so I'm going to defer to other advice. I would guess that you can do some Google searches on the appropriate stretching exercises. if you read through the archive here, you can also find stuff. I must've written the alphabet with the toe on my broken leg about 1500 times since this all started.

Good luck.

[caseyma24]

I also write the alphabet with my toe everyday (sometimes 2x a day) and another big one was picking up marbles with my toes. It really helped me with my ankle stiffness. There are tons of others too... bending and straightening of the knee is huge too- but I would recommend getting the drs. ok before going ahead with that. good luck!

[michele53]

Originally Posted by Skittles420

Wow, that's just crazy that they can charge you that much. I guess I need to find my insurance book and see if PT is even covered. But, there is no way I'll be able to afford to go even on a weekly basis. I mean, with me being out of work and in a new condo we just bought, things are pretty tight. So, I'm going to have to get the PT to show me excercises I can do at home on my own I guess, which really sucks. I don't look forward to it.

It amazes me how expensive healthcare is. When this happened, I had brand new insurance and hadn't received my card yet so the hospital couldn't verify that I had insurance, so they sent me a bill. The bill was for $70,000!!! Amazing. Thankfully, my card was in the mailbox when I got home from the hospital (I broke my leg out of town visiting family) so when the bill came, I was able to just have BCBS billed for it. Whew!!

I broke tib/fib out of town and ended up in hospital w/bloodclots in leg/lungs and had hardware removed -- Will probably be close to $200K but insurance negotiates it all down -- I saw one bill where respitory therapist charged $3500 to provide plastic tube to blow into and walk me around corridor in hosp. to check my breathing -- crazy! My co-pay for PT is $50 so I only went once a week -- this is crazy too because really everyone should go 3 times a week to get the most out of it.

[michele53]

Originally Posted by ankletwister

Michele - I'm so glad to hear your surgery went well and things are looking up. I'm hoping for the same when I get my HWR. Guess we probably won't hear much more from you around here. And that's a wonderful thing that you are moving on from your injuries and back to normal. Best wishes.

Got stitches out of leg from hardware removal this week. OS says next week I can start riding my exercise bike but have to watch for swelling because I still have swelling from surgery (wearing compression sock again). To be honest, even though some of the pain was eliminated from the hardware removal, my ankle still has pain from stiffness and I am still limping at this point. My OS said even though he took stitches out if I'm not careful, long cuts could possibly break open so I am not forcing foot movement as that seems to pull on some of the cuts that are down by my ankle on both sides and front. Hopefully once skin heals a little more I will be able to move ankle around more to work out some of this stiffness. Only then will I know where/what pain is going to ultimately be like. My OS gave me pain pills called Tramadol HCL 50 mg -- I am not a pill taker but I like these as they don't mess with my head and I can drive but it just makes the pain in my leg/ankle more comfortable - can take one every 6 hours. I go back to OS in 6 weeks.

[michele53]

Originally Posted by tanntren04

Hi all, I was lookin for some info about my injury and stumbled on your stories so I thought I would share mine. Dec. 29 I was gettin off my kids bunk beds and fell. I broke my tibia and fibia. I was taken to the nearest hospital for x-rays and such at which time I knew it was broke but not the severity. My break was so severe they couldnt treat me, they admitted me and attempted to find a specialist who could. I had surgery the next day and I received 15 screws and 2 plates, I broke both bones clean in half and they also splintered in several places goin into the ankle joint, I was placed in a splint for three weeks. After that I received two casts and I was on crutches/NWB for 11 weeks. My 6-8 weeks turned into 9-12. At first it was really ruff feeling helpless but you gotta be a take charge person and look for optimism. I just got my cast off on 3/17/10 and I'm still gonna be on crutches with a walking cast for several more weeks. As you can imagine atrophy set into my leg but I can walk on it a little. Here's the kicker....no pt for me cuz I have no insurance.

Keep moving and rotating your ankle all day/every day if you can! A lot of us have ankle pain and we are a year and more into this.

[ankletwister]

Michelle, I'm still holding out lots of hope that once you get past this first few days/weeks it will all work itself out for you. I have ankle pain every day exactly where the screw was inserted and get pain up near my knee where the screw there was inserted and where they inserted the rod. Hoping beyond hope that this is from the HW and not nerve damage. We shall see sometime in June/July I guess. Did you have to go back to NWB for a few days? I'm trying to figure out how much time I'll need NWB (if any) to make sure I set the surgery at a day/time when I can do it where it will be least disruptive to work. Take care.
Diana

[michele53]

Originally Posted by ankletwister

Michelle, I'm still holding out lots of hope that once you get past this first few days/weeks it will all work itself out for you. I have ankle pain every day exactly where the screw was inserted and get pain up near my knee where the screw there was inserted and where they inserted the rod. Hoping beyond hope that this is from the HW and not nerve damage. We shall see sometime in June/July I guess. Did you have to go back to NWB for a few days? I'm trying to figure out how much time I'll need NWB (if any) to make sure I set the surgery at a day/time when I can do it where it will be least disruptive to work. Take care.
Diana

My OS would have allowed as much time off as I needed but I only took a week because I work in a one-girl office and boss needs to travel - yes, I could have probably even gone back sooner. I walked on my own as soon as I got home out of the car. Did not wear boot as it would rub against stitches and that was ok with OS. Leg was bandaged for 3 days then I went back and OS looked at stitches and put new wrapping on leg - very little blood, etc. Back to taking showers with trash bag duck taped on leg for 3 weeks until stitches were taken out. After stitches were taken out I went back to wearing compression sock because of ankle swelling. It's been 3-1/2 wks since surgery and yesterday I started riding my exercise bike for 10 min. providing I monitor swelling. I'm taking one pain pill during the day just in case -- didn't take one yesterday and no problem but I also didn't walk much. And yes, my ankle doesn't have full ROM (can't point toe/foot too far but), possibly due to scar tissue and not being used much Pain level IS better after removal of hardware. I will post again after next OS visit May 3rd as by that time I'll have more progress.
Michele

[Skittles420]

Michele -- can you tell me more about the bone stimulator? It's been 12 weeks since my surgery and I've been NWB this whole time. I went back to the OS today for my 12 week checkup and he said that the xrays look the same as they did 6 weeks ago. They're healing very, very slow (which I saw you also had a problem with) and so he told me to continue to NWB and use a bone stimulator for the next 2months and then come back. The physical therapist hasn't brought me the bone stim yet so I was hoping you could give me some more info on it.

I am only 32 years old and am concerned that I'm not healing fast enough. I wonder if I should have a bone density scan? My OS says no but I'm going to be playing roller derby and that is a pretty brutal, full-contact sport. I think I should make sure my bones can withstand a sport of that nature before I go head-on into it again.

[Skittles420]

Oh and... did you have to pay for this thing and if so, how much? I have insurance but it's not the best. Is it crazy-expensive or reasonable?

[methadonepretty]

Oh, I ran into this thread whilst looking for info on how long my leg would take to heal. So I thought I'd weigh in with my story!

I broke my leg on the 8th of jan when I slipped on some ice on a night out. Spiral fracture just above the ankle on the tibia, and a green stick fracture (i think) on the fibula. They kept me in hospital for about 3 days trying to decide whether to operate or not, and to keep an eye on the pain (which was excruiating, ive broken both these bones before and i dont remember it hurting that much then!). I came back for a check up a week later, they decided they had to operate after all, and so I came back a week later for the operation, which they didn't know what they'd do get, either a pin down the centre of the bone, a plate, or an external fixator, depending on how it looked when they were inside. But they messed me around for days and I was fed up so got transferred to a different hospital (near my parents house so they could look after me ).
So then the next week I finally had the operation, 3 weeks after I actually broke it. So I ahve 1 plate and 7 screws now. And I have a bone density scan tomorrow because apparently normal healthy 19 year olds bones shouldnt have crumbled just from slipping over (or from all the other bones ive broken, 8 in 6 years).
So its been about 3 months since i broke it, and I feel happy with it all, I can walk without pain, although I havent been told im allowed to yet so i dont do it often, and occaionally get a bit of an ache around where the screws are at the top and bottom of the plate, but I hardly imagined it'd be painfree right away even if it was fully healed right? Walking painlessly, albiet it with a slight limp due to my ankle not being fully mobilzed yet, whats the liklihood of the doctor saying im good to go? Any experience of being at this stage of recovery? Obviously no one can say for sure but my dr looking at the x-rays but...3 months after the break, anyone know if I'll be off the crutches?