Fractured scaphoid

FCTRY
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Roanoke, VA, USA
2/19/2018 9:00pm
Surgery with a screw- 22 weeks.
JD35
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SG
2/20/2018 12:17am
Broke mine in my right hand. Took 6 months to heal after getting a bone graft from my hip. As of now, I have a limited motion to ~70%, though, after some stretching it can improve to ~80%. Make sure you do your rehab and do absolutely no heavy lifts with your hand. I was an impatient smartass, did cycling and weights workout which made my recovery slower.

hamncheeze
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British Columbia, CA
2/20/2018 12:54am
The best option is going to vary a lot from person to person depending on location and severity of the fracture. Time estimates from another person's are not really worth much. In general, if it is broken in the proximal portion of the bone (closer to the arm) it will take longer due to how the blood flow is to the bone. The distal fractures (closer to hand) get better blood supply and tend to heal quicker. If the fracture is large don't be talked into conservative management, see another doctor and get surgery.
Flip109
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2/20/2018 1:55am
Tim507 wrote:
Had a fractured scaphoid (navicular) cast for 3 months and no healing.......went to surgery in Seattle (Team Doc for the Sonics) and had a bone graft...
Had a fractured scaphoid (navicular) cast for 3 months and no healing.......went to surgery in Seattle (Team Doc for the Sonics) and had a bone graft from my hip......100% healed in another 3 months. I was about 30 at the time. Wrist is still good.
Broke mine around 2000. In a cast for 9 months. Felt better but wouldn’t heal completely. They wanted to do this surgery but told me I would lose most my range of motion. I passed. To this day it can still bother me after a long day of riding. Other than that never feel it. Such a pain in the ass nagging injury tho.

The Shop

2/20/2018 4:45am
I broke mine in 2005. Didn't go to the DR for a few months. By then it had nearly healed. It hurts nearly every day due to arthritis. I have limited motion in wrist. Riding with brace helps when riding but the night after dear lord I have some pain.
faster48
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North Coventry, PA, USA
2/20/2018 5:45am
Broke mine in 2002. Dislocated most of the bones in my left hand and broke the scaphoid in half. As mentioned the bone has a limited blood supply which often requires pins or screws. Mine was pinned and pasted. I was told 6 months but using the bone stim helped tremendously. I was out of the cast and into therapy at 10 weeks and riding buy 12. Good luck
2/20/2018 5:54am Edited Date/Time 2/20/2018 5:57am
16 weeks in a cast. It took a few years for it to feel normal. Honestly, rock climbing saved my sanity. It helped so much with the everyday pain I was able to ride again with no issues and got my strength and range of motion back.

Do your physical therapy. I did at home stuff but I know I would have saved a bunch of recovery time by doing PT.
slipdog
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Nor Cal, CA, USA
2/20/2018 6:23am
Broke mine 3 times. 3rd time the specialist said should've had surgery the first time so after 3 months, a screw, bone graft and a bone stimulator, haven't had a problem with it since 1993
stillwelding
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Santa Clarita, CA, USA
2/20/2018 6:30am Edited Date/Time 2/20/2018 6:32am
Anyone ever do this, how long in a cast, or before you can ride again. My doctor says 8 weeks minimum, he says it's in place...
Anyone ever do this, how long in a cast, or before you can ride again. My doctor says 8 weeks minimum, he says it's in place and in a good spot. Can anyone let me know how there recovery was.
6 months in a cast. One month out of cast, waiting for surgery. Surgery with bone graft from hip. 6 months in cast. After 5 years, bone graft gave up. 30+ years with still broken wrist. Get up and go to work TIG welding every day. Wrist sore as hell sometimes. If it gets over extended, feels like I just broke it again. Mine was pretty bad though, along with broken scaphoid, I had 17 displaced fractures of the hand. My crash had forced my lower arm into my hand. My thumb got rotated parallel to my lower arm. Can still play ride though.
slipdog
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2/20/2018 6:32am
6 months in a cast. One month out of cast, waiting for surgery. Surgery with bone graft from hip. 6 months in cast. After 5 years...
6 months in a cast. One month out of cast, waiting for surgery. Surgery with bone graft from hip. 6 months in cast. After 5 years, bone graft gave up. 30+ years with still broken wrist. Get up and go to work TIG welding every day. Wrist sore as hell sometimes. If it gets over extended, feels like I just broke it again. Mine was pretty bad though, along with broken scaphoid, I had 17 displaced fractures of the hand. My crash had forced my lower arm into my hand. My thumb got rotated parallel to my lower arm. Can still play ride though.
I just puked in my mouth a little.
dmac1
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USA
2/20/2018 11:22am
Broke mine in college, didn't go to doc for about 1 1/2 months. Had started to heal, but not aligned. Fix was cast or rebreak and cast. I was like....cast. Should sucked it up and had em rebreak it and fix it right. 30 years later I had scaphoid removed as it totally calcified up and only motion was flexion and very little at that cuz it was already held down by calicified scaphoid.

Anyway, I suggest not drinking pop. My surgeon said it impairs bone healing. He said some other things, but I forget what they were. Prolly cigs, but I don't smoke. Be as healthy as ya can and drink your milk!

They make bone stimulators....but your doc would hafta prescribe and insurance pay for it. I believe that most if not all top athletes get the stimulators to speed up their recovery. Us mere mortals usually don't, but I did after the scaphoid excision to assure healing of the fusion thats then necessary.

I have less motion than before the injury, but its centered and I can deal with it. Its my clutch hand...which is why I could ignore the damn thing in the first place (I'm right handed).
Naanak
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2/20/2018 11:45am
I was lucky. Not a bad break and 3momths in a cast with riding two weeks after cast came off. So far no issues. It was back in 2011.
2/20/2018 12:28pm Edited Date/Time 2/20/2018 12:32pm
I broke mine 15 years ago, Pins and a cast for 5 months. Felt like an eternity during senior year of High school. 15 years post scaphoid fx and I am still riding 1-3 times a week. Over the last year I have noticed some numbness while doing longer motos, Im assuming its related. I have learned to live but it hurts like hell sometimes. I have been running a Mobuis brace which I feel like is helping a ton. Happy healing. Cheers.
motogrady
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2/20/2018 1:11pm

Broke my right, hit a pile of downed riders in the dust, 4th gear tapped out.

Lucked out, doc was the guy for the then Baltimore Colts,
Put me in a cast, positioned the hand like it was wide open on the gas.
18 weeks. A whole summer in that thing.
Was like the hand just flapped around at first.
Swimming freaked me out. It was like a wet rag on the end of my arm.

Tennis was kind of my second thing, even before the injury.
Right handed, two hand backhand, I could drill it.
That summer, I became a left handed tennis player.
I think it kinda helped.
To compensate, until I got the left down, I worked on foot and position placement.
In other words, I ran my ass off, every day.
Don't know how many sets of shoes I wrecked, but by the time the cast came off, I was an okay lefty.
And I was in great cardio shape.

Still believe, it was the hard and high blood volume that came with the sprinting that helped the bone to heal
Even the doc was surprised, said it was the best recoveries without a pin he'd ever seen.

Today, maybe 90% rom compared to the other one.

One good thing that came out of it, the look on the guy on the other side of the net when I first play a stranger,
They can't believe it when I switch the racket from right to left.
Can go a whole match, hitting just forehands, or backhands, if I feel like it.
Lightning78
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Huntington Beach, CA, USA
2/20/2018 1:21pm
DDMX18 wrote:
Sorry to hear that, i broke mine in 94 and had a screw put in it straight away. I had the screw taken out 12 months...
Sorry to hear that, i broke mine in 94 and had a screw put in it straight away. I had the screw taken out 12 months later as it was causing me trouble. Overall I lost some movement and its never been 100% but I know lots of guys that tried the cast and waited months for it to heal, but it never did, by then the bone died and they had replacements either by taking a piece of your hip bone and one guy i knew had a plastic one put in. Either way, give it heaps of time to heal and see a specialist in that field. I was lucky enough to be taken care of by the leading hand surgeon in Australia, Dr Tim Herbert (who invented the Herbert Screw). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Herbert
slipdog wrote:
I got a Herbert screw in '93 after the third break in 2 years. They grafted bone from my hip and I ran an electrical bone...
I got a Herbert screw in '93 after the third break in 2 years. They grafted bone from my hip and I ran an electrical bone stimulator for 3 months and its been a champ ever since.
Those electronic bone stimulators are crucial to bones that dont get a lot of blood flow... i used one for my compount tib fib and it dramatically shortened my recovery time to 100% you just have to make sure to make it a habit to wear it through its 3 hour cycle every single day. I used to put mine on every night before bed
slipdog
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2/20/2018 3:13pm
Those electronic bone stimulators are crucial to bones that dont get a lot of blood flow... i used one for my compount tib fib and it...
Those electronic bone stimulators are crucial to bones that dont get a lot of blood flow... i used one for my compount tib fib and it dramatically shortened my recovery time to 100% you just have to make sure to make it a habit to wear it through its 3 hour cycle every single day. I used to put mine on every night before bed
I use to wear mine to bed every night too.

On another note, a little weird when I realize I made almost the exact same post this morning as I did 4 yrs ago on page 1 of this thread. Woohoo
2/20/2018 4:14pm Edited Date/Time 2/20/2018 4:19pm
I've broken mine twice, the first time requiring the hip bone graft many others have mentioned above due to it dying (avascular necrosis). Chiseling a chunk of bone from your hip hurts like a mofo!

I've had a couple ortho surgeons tell me the scaphoid is essentially a useless bone - an artifact of some strange evolutionary path that left us with this useless, yet highly vulnerable bone in our hands. In it's worst form, a broken scaphoid can be a career ender for a motocrosser, much like the shoulder labrum tear is to a baseball pitcher.

Exercising patience long enough to let it heal properly is probably the hardest part. There's about a 2-3 month period where you feel like your wrist is good but it's really an additional 2-3 months you shouldn't be doing anything with your wrist.
2/20/2018 5:28pm
Anyone ever do this, how long in a cast, or before you can ride again. My doctor says 8 weeks minimum, he says it's in place...
Anyone ever do this, how long in a cast, or before you can ride again. My doctor says 8 weeks minimum, he says it's in place and in a good spot. Can anyone let me know how there recovery was.
I was told 6-8 weeks . It ended up being 8 weeks.
tobz
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Adelaide, AU
2/21/2018 2:55am Edited Date/Time 2/21/2018 2:55am
Naanak wrote:
I was lucky. Not a bad break and 3momths in a cast with riding two weeks after cast came off. So far no issues. It was...
I was lucky. Not a bad break and 3momths in a cast with riding two weeks after cast came off. So far no issues. It was back in 2011.
Mines probably similar to this, you've no issues with armpump with that arm like I've mentioned?


Riding a 250twoey probably doesn't help the cause either
Naanak
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USA
2/21/2018 4:11am
Naanak wrote:
I was lucky. Not a bad break and 3momths in a cast with riding two weeks after cast came off. So far no issues. It was...
I was lucky. Not a bad break and 3momths in a cast with riding two weeks after cast came off. So far no issues. It was back in 2011.
tobz wrote:
Mines probably similar to this, you've no issues with armpump with that arm like I've mentioned?


Riding a 250twoey probably doesn't help the cause either
No, I get armpump sometimes but it’s just from holding on to tight haha.
rbyrnes619
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Temecula, CA, USA
2/21/2018 5:30am
I had a scaphoid nonunion fracture when I was 19 and had surgery to repair. Did a bone graft from my hip with a screw to keep it in place. 11 weeks with a cast on and did physical therapy to follow. I have about 95% range of motion and doctor said it was one of the best healing's that he's seen. Still gets sore after riding.
swtwtwtw
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Apple Valley, CA, USA
2/21/2018 8:27am
rbyrnes619 wrote:
I had a scaphoid nonunion fracture when I was 19 and had surgery to repair. Did a bone graft from my hip with a screw to...
I had a scaphoid nonunion fracture when I was 19 and had surgery to repair. Did a bone graft from my hip with a screw to keep it in place. 11 weeks with a cast on and did physical therapy to follow. I have about 95% range of motion and doctor said it was one of the best healing's that he's seen. Still gets sore after riding.
x2. 9 months to heal though, i was 35, but yup 95% range of motion.
swtwtwtw
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Apple Valley, CA, USA
2/21/2018 8:36am
rbyrnes619 wrote:
I had a scaphoid nonunion fracture when I was 19 and had surgery to repair. Did a bone graft from my hip with a screw to...
I had a scaphoid nonunion fracture when I was 19 and had surgery to repair. Did a bone graft from my hip with a screw to keep it in place. 11 weeks with a cast on and did physical therapy to follow. I have about 95% range of motion and doctor said it was one of the best healing's that he's seen. Still gets sore after riding.
swtwtwtw wrote:
x2. 9 months to heal though, i was 35, but yup 95% range of motion.
then i did this at 55, yet the scaphoid didn't break.




flymoto
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GB
2/21/2018 8:45am
I hope you have More luck than I did. Perlunate dislocation and Fracture of scaphoid. Had in pinned and casted for 3 l-4 months then the physio starts. I only have 20 percent Rom backwards, so it’s terrible for riding a dirt bike! The longer your in a cast the worse it gets. My specialist said you won’t develop anymore range of motion after 2 months of been out of the cast so do some good physio.

He was pretty good aswel, done operations on Some top wsbk riders.

All I can say is use comfrey oil to heal the bone. It’s a herbal remedy, my bone was dieing but a month of using comfrey it was healed.

I don’t suffer from arm pump and it doesn’t get particularly sore from riding. Good luck!
RCMXracing
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N., TX, USA
2/21/2018 10:46am
6 weeks elbow cast, 4 weeks half cast at 40 years old. Biggest issue is getting mobility back. The older you are the longer it takes, and may not get it all back. I got lucky with the time. Would do a screw if it happened again.

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