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I got a non-displaced fracture the weekend after Thanksgiving (6 weeks ago) and just got clearance to start riding my stationary bike with no resistance. How long did it take you to get back on the bike and when did you feel confident you wouldn't screw it up again? I'm also scheduled to work as a flagger at Daytona on February 28 and am a bit nervous about being able to do that as I'm still rolling around on a knee scooter.
Full disclosure: I was also the same guy who was asking for advice about a mid-level boot because my SG-12's are too stiff and lack feel. I have officially learned my lesson and will be wearing my good boots going forward.
Every person and injury is different. I kept racing with a broken nondisplaced fibula FX and still have a floating part on the bottom (didn't really hurt was just annoying). I'd say do whatever works for you and your situation.
Every injury is different. I badly broke and crushed bokes in my foot and ankle, had surgery and was cleared to ride again about 3 or 4 months from injury to first ride. The Dr. understood the type of riding I did , at the time some dr. s thought of riding a motorcycle like cruising on a street bike. But I was cleared to ride moto. I wish I had waited longer. I had pain still and it got worse instead of better.
No mater what Your Dr. says, (assuming that You are cleared to ride , not saying to ride before being cleared) listen to Your body . If Your having pain, talk with Your Dr. It may be normal pain from getting back into riding, or it may be a sign that You need more time to heal. I ended up having complications that resulted in many more surgeries and a total of 11 years between injury and the last surgery I had. If I had listened to my body and told the dr. about pain and bruising early on, I may have saved myself YEARS of pain and missed riding. I was young and eager to get back to riding ASAP.So I ignored some signs that should have been red flags. I tried for a couple years to ride through the pain , expecting it to get better, but it got worse and eventually was making it no longer enjoyable to ride. It turns out I had not fully healed at the point I was cleared.
I asked my doc yesterday how long until I could ride and he asked, "Like cruising around?" Nope, throwing down. He said he wouldn't recommend for another 4-5 weeks and see how it felt. He seemed a little leerier about the mtb as a foot dab in mtb shoes would be a little rougher.
I fractured my tibia right at the inner ankle ball towards the end of June. It took realistically 4 months to feel stable enough to start riding again and even now, I still favor it a bit when walking and riding.
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It will likely still feel a little tender and take a bit to trust again even when You are ready for the first ride. Doing stuff that will promote blood flow will help heal. Sometimes riding a stationary bike can help and limit the risks a regular bike would have when starting out. If You can , I recommend a sports PT to help with recovery. I was able to get into a place normally only top pro athlete's were able to get into. Olympic skiers, Red Sox, Patriots ,etc. And it was wild how much they pushed me and they helped me get my entire body back into shape for riding. Compared to a regular PT, its not close. I was blown away by how hard the worked me. I used to push myself pretty hard, they cranked it up a level! It was amazing to experience. They gave me advice on diet and it was really cool , other than the part about being hurt badly. I was allowed in because I was injured so badly and they used me as a training/teaching tool. My surgeries were in a TV style OR with many people watching.
I'm sure others will chime in. But if I could do it over and take even an entire year off from riding and racing to have avoided the extra pain and surgeries and be ale to get back to riding after missing a year, I would.
I had a friend tell me I was coming back too soon and I said my Dr. cleared me. And he gave an example of another local who had a similar injury to mine that had similar complications. Since then I've cautioned others to take extra time and play it safe since I blew it.
Your Dr. or another Dr. that has access to all of Your scans and X-rays is who You should listen to. If You feel like they may not understand moto, or have other concerns You could see another Dr. for a second opinion. Unless You are Jett Lawrence making millions racing and even then, its better to play on the safe side to make sure You are totally healed VS getting a few extra rides in and setting Yourself back farther . In my opinion as somebody who has had many injuries and pushed to be back riding as fast as possible.
Every injury is different even very similar ones.
It sounds like your injury was substantially worse than mine, but the fact is I'm 58 years old and I am going to take it as slow as I need to, thanks for the advice. I always want to be a hammerhead and do too much.
Had serious ankle reconstructive surgery involving cleaning up the tib, fib & talus. Bilateral ligament reattach & clean-up. Had to steal a tendon from one of my toes to replace one that I was missing at the bottom of my foot. To top it all off…they did the micro-fracture drilling thing that sorta mandates 8 weeks of non-weight bearing and cast-boot during that time. Also, did the stem thing…so. I had the hole drilled in my side again.
Ankles are tricky joints. Give them all the time and PT you can.
Good Luck!
I was in my early 20's at the time. My entire foot is mostly fused now. I had one surgery that developed a MRSA infection that took another 4 to fix. Total of 7 surgeries. I only have movement in my toes and very little in my ankle itself. I broke the first plate they put in and now have hardware meant for a leg in my foot. Much more HD.
I have a friend that had a compound fracture of his tib at his ankle and he also developed an infection. He was in his late 30's to early 40's when that happened. He has recovered and was racing Enduro MTB's for a while and doing very well. He had some injuries riding MTBS, not related to his ankle injury. SO he has dialed back the riding he does. Sticking to cross country style riding and bikes. But he's doing well as far as his ankle. I'm able to ride MTB's fine. Shifting is very difficult The lack of movement combined with being 6'9" and size 16 boots makes it very hard comfortable shift riding aggressive . I rode ac Stark Varg and fell in love with riding all over, most fun I have had on a bike in many years. Unfortunately I'm taking care of my mother who has Dementia and Alzheimer's. SO I'm worried about getting hurt and being unable to care for her. So for now, I'm staying away from MX. I was very good on a MTB and maybe a little above average on a MX bike but got hurt a ton. I feel less likely to be injured on a MTB given my history. But I'm still taking it very very easy compared to my past. Still fun and better than nothing.
I've posted a more complete story of my injury on here if You wanted to learn more about it.
I raced three rounds of the Florida Winter Series on a broken ankle by following Jeff Smiths "Total Taping". It took a bag full of various taping supplies and it seemed like an hour to go all the steps in the procedure but when you were done it was like a somewhat flexible cast on your foot. Support was great but after a few days you would have to cut it off and start all over again. At least I didn't miss the races and no damage done.
I was cleared to ride four months after this one:
The wife at 58 this year broke her ankle while riding on Sept 15 she rode a tame arenacross track on Dec 20 with the small bikes and little kids.
She was slow and cautious but did it.Prior to that she did lots and lots of physiotherapy .
Just be patient with the time and don’t rush.
I had a Pilon fracture to my ankle Tib/Fib and didn’t walk for a year, don’t try and come back too soon the ankle is a serious injury and should be taken very seriously if you want to be walking in your future.
I broke a small chip off my Medial Malleous - the bone which is the bump on the inside - on March 2nd of last year. It took me 12 weeks before I could ride again, but the damn piece never did really heal up. I had a non-union for months. They even gave me one of those bone stimulator machines with the ultrasound gel, and I used that for four months. I didn't feel "healed" until Thanksgiving, or roughly 8 months. It's still a bit tender and I can't twist my ankle or it flares up. The Doctor says I can live with it or have the piece surgically removed. I'm living with it right now. We'll see if I can do it long-term.
That is the bone I broke but luckily everything stayed contained and no floating bone fragments. They thought they may have to put a couple screws in it but the healing looked good at the 3 week check up.
Out of curiosity what are you good boots? Three broken toes and a broken navicular in August, I was weaning sg12’s
Same boots, SG12's.
Oh, ok ok. I miss read your original post.
No problem, I was not wearing those boots when I broke my ankle. I was trying to compare lap times on two bikes and wanted better feel (because I'm an idiot) and was wearing my trail cutting boots that are Tech 1's.
Pit Row
Oh dang!! Well I literally tipped over and had some pretty sever breaks. it haunts me at night how i could get hurt so bad just falling over.
You're in better shape than I was, then. The problem with the ankle is there isn't great blood flow. If you have a fracture, that's better than your body trying to "weld" two parts together.
Definitely take Calcium supplements; my doctor recommended that and I think it helped. Vitamin D to go along with it - I understand it helps the Calcium get into the bones.
Broke my ankle last January, so almost a year ago now. Went for a triple that no one had gone for and turns out it was out of my league. Cased it and ended up with a shattered ankle. Every single step since then I'm reminded of that moment in time. It's unfortunate, but this is dirtbikes, we all know what the costs are and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Haven't rode since and unfortunately not planning on either, but not related to the ankle. If I could, I'd throw my leg over a bike without skipping a heartbeat.
After the first x-ray the doc came up and said they need to do an extra CT scan to get a better idea, didn't sound too good lol. Definitely not the worst break ever and I'm counting myself lucky, I still get to walk around mostly fine and do sports and other activities. Over the last year I've done a fair share of PT and strength training but I definitely could've done more. Ended up with 2 surgeries and a cast for 2 months, after that no weight for a month and very little PT after that. I wish we could get a in-depth view into how for example Jett is recovering from his ankle injury and what the full extent of the damage is.
Interesting to read everyones experiences, thanks all! Don't have the best pic of the aftermath but here is my left ankle currently.
I shattered both of mine at GH. One fused and one with limited mobility. Lots of hardware, with PT and a new set of tech 10’s I was riding 4 months later. Wasn’t the most comfortable but I was riding. Took longer to be comfortable walking
Every injury is different let alone for different people/ ages/ health etc. I had the same non displaced fracture on both sides (at different times) and one I was cruising around in 2 weeks and riding without worry in 4, and the other I wasn't even on the bike for 8 weeks. Any soft tissue damage? ligaments and such? that can be the governing factor on time as well.
Yikes, that one got ya good... No kidding it shattered. Looks like an explosion.
I thought I would add some photos. I do not have any X-rays handy of the break before it was fused. But its pretty wild to see a solid foot VS a normal one with all the joints still there. There are photos that show my foot open, if these are something I should remove let me know. If You do not want to see a foot cut open with holes in the bones scroll past.
Its hard to see but there was a crack in the plate and multiple screws broken. This was pre surgery for fixing the infection I got from the first Fusion .
Images below are of my foot after and during a couple of the times they went in a scraped out infected bone and tissue.
This is after they filled the areas back in with bone from my shin and fake bone went into my shin.
This image below was after the first surgery they did to remove the infected bone and tissue. I had a drain tube for a while. You can see where it was in some of the photos. I may not have posted the ones that its clear in , just because they all look similar.
And this was the X-ray after the bone graft and new plate and screws.
A swollen foot pic just for the hell of it. I still am shocked at how big it got.
I first broke it in November of 2000 and my last surgery was October of 2011. I went from working for a company with company provided insurance to working for myself and having my own insurance so that added to the timeline and complications.
always makes me feel normal coming into these topics and seeing people with similar, if not, the same injuries haha
Pummel, you have the same injury as mine, but on the opposite foot. Twinsies!
Very similar to my break, Pilon fracture , did mine June of 2003 by casing a big double.
First pic was the original hardware from 2003.
Other pic is now, had a ankle replacement in 2024 due to severe arthritis.
What’s your feeling on the replacement? Happy with the outcome?
I’m approaching ankle replacement as well, holding out as long as I can.
I broke both L & R talus, L calcaneus, R cuboid and fib in 2012 (MVA, not Moto)
Subtalar fusion on L side, but… my R ankle is so loaded with arthritis that I’m prepping for replacement
10 ankle surgeries total so far (5 L and 5 R), more to come 😖
My Surgeon is trying to talk me out of a replacement and go with a total fusion, but I’m not stoked on that idea! He has some valid points though…
Hoping your Replacement is kickin’ ass! 🤟
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