sleepless in seattle. broken clavicle

gimpy said:

hi folks. first timer. broke R clavicle from nasty fall, so i have some down time. i have a new found respect for gravel...especially when its around lite-rail tracks that are suspiciously the same width as my road tires. well, it was interesting entering the hospital on a stretcher; very clean ceiling tiles. Man, iwant to ride again, but am feeling a bit freaked out. anyone out there with similar experience? am i an idiot for wanting to hop back on?

I'm sure lots o' folks here have had the same experience. I was lucky enough to break my right clavicle in 4 places, shatter my scapula into 16 bits, bust 3 ribs in 2 places each, and break my neck, all at the same time in a motorpickle racing get off.

Yer not an idiot for wanting to get back on. For now, take the pain killers, and for god's sake, find a good lazyboy to sleep in. The last thing you want is to sleep in bed and roll over onto your busticated side. You might also consider playing up this accident to a worthy female to ply extra special benefits outta her. Good luck healin'.

wow, you sure have come to the right place Gimpy. There's an entire thread dedicated to broken clavicles here. I am also in the Seattle area (Enumclaw) and am 3 weeks out of surgery. I broke mine on the 5th and had a steel plate put in on the 13th.

Hope that all of you get better soon! You will have a bit of the shakes when you start up again, but just ride!

LOL @ the shakes!

after going a couple weeks with no exercise I found an afternoon walking around the fair to be exhausting!

thanks for the well wishes. I saw my orthopod two days ago and he said that i'll probably be okay without the plate;although he wouldn't commit on a healing time ( he mentioned 3 months...to 12 months). So in 6 weeks, if the xrays show that the darn thing isn't mending, we'll seriously consider the plate. He leaned towards letting it heal by itself for now. Anyone out there just let the bone mend? All my friends are riding right now and I'm jealous. My wife if freaked that I'll ride again....it's hard to kill passion 🙂. Enjoy the rides for me!

I am in my late teens, so my bones still heal on their own well compared to adults. I think it is after 21 years of age that generally bones stop growing on their own really.

Well I broke my humorous bone 2 years ago, because I jumped this think and kind of landed all wrong. Hit one of those containers that are meant to be shipped on cargo ships, or trucks.

And yes it felt very weird breaking my bone. Kind of screwed me up mentally for a while. But now that I look back at it, it has made me a much more mature rider. It is funny how not riding your bike for a while, ultimately makes you better.

Anyways, the doctors never really told me how long it would take to heal. It ended up to be around 5 months of total healing. After that I could pretty much do anything, the only problem was that my muscles were all really tight. Can you imagine not moving you whole arm for that long? It took me a full year to gain my full potential of that arm. And it was my right arm! The one I write with. Anyways, it was a great experience that I hope will never happen again.

Anyways,

Get well soon! And don't be afraid of riding again!

Everything I've read indicates your bones don't really start going into regression until you reach 30-35yrs of age. but constant exercise (like resistance training) will keep them in good shape.

Tell your wife not to worry Gimpy, of course you'll ride again 😉

If you can go that long without the ill effects of depression or otherwise, then I'm sure attempting the healing au natural is the way to go. although after only 1 month of no exercise (can't even mowing the lawn!) it's really starting to wear on me mentally.

I didn't want to get 8-12 weeks down the line, find out there was no union, and have to start the whole process over. But thats me. Some people can handle that type of setback just fine. I just kept thinking that if I had to start over it would start to dig into Snowboard season.

Quoted post said:

I saw my orthopod two days ago

LOL, still laughing @ orthopod. just thought that was funny.

hey dustin,

good luck with your recovery. i've resorted to watching biking dvds to cure the boredom. now i'm more pumped about cycling; it's so zen. unfortunately, i fall in the 30-35 age demographics; hopefully my clavicle doesn't realize that. that plate sounds real good right now. oh...orthopod is medical slang for orthopedic surgeon. if you start throwing that term around with your physician, he'll think you're in healthcare🙂 .

LOL, I think this forum has become a support group for broken collarbones.

I've been watching a lot of x-games (which 2006 X-games 12 starts tomorrow!!) which is good, but it leaves me hungry to ride, which is bad.

I wouldn't worry about age. I honestly don't think it's that big of a factor. From everything I've read and been told, the biggest factors are really the type of break (mine was not likely to heal on it's own) and whether or not a persons bones have the capability to really heal well on their own. I've seen very young people who don't heal well, and older (50yrs+) who healed nicely just wearing the figure 8.

I just figured the plate was an insurance policy and an investment of a years worth of discomfort. I figured it was worthwhile being only 23.