broke my collar bone

[Panic661]

and have a one question for those of you that have done the same

did the bruising get worse the second day? and i get occasional numbness but i figure thats from not moving my arm.

i am waiting to hear from a surgeon b/c and cant do much with the arm..has anyone had their clavicle surgically repaired? what sort of process am i looking at?

xray:

 

[qtrain]

hell of a break, what did you do?

 

[Panic661]

i was snowboarding...caught my toes..sorta front flipped right ontop of my shoulder

 

[01cobravortech]

I bet that's got to hurt.

Wish you a speedy recovery my friend.

 

[qtrain]

that sucks, i fractured the area where the sternum and clavicle meet but it wasnt that bad. heal itself, the bad part was i torn up my labrum in my shoulder and didnt notice until after my chest healed.

 

[fiveohhhstang]

No fun, hope you heal ok. My son broke his collar bone like that when he was 18 months old.

 

[Planter]

ouch man. hope ya heal quickly and get back on your feet.

 

[Panic661]

yea i was told most broken clavicles are just left to heal...but the doc said there was no way mine would. so im sitting here like this until i see a surgeon. and ty for the well wishes.

 

[Panic661]

No fun, hope you heal ok. My son broke his collar bone like that when he was 18 months old.

did he go through surgery? how long did it take to heal up? prob diff since he was a baby as far as healing went but hell idk.

 

[slow06]

Broke mine when I was young, I remember being in some sling that went around me. I did not have to have surgery though. It sucks, I was afraid to move. I had bruising also. I broke mine when someone's foot had caught it when they landed on me. Hope everything goes good, just take it as easy as you can.

 

[WireEater]

Popped collars are for douchers.

 

[tnuce10]

I've heard those are painful. Speedy recovery!

 

[DirtyDan10]

ofcourse bruising occurs more the next day , feel better you should have or be getting some oxy's =]

 

[kevinatfms]

i got hit while playing box lacrosse about 10 years ago and broke both my collar bones. one was bad enough they had to use screws and plates to hold my left collar bone together. ended up being out for a whole summer. they made this contraption to hold my arm/shoulder at an angle to help reset the bone, ended up with the nickname "robocop" for the entire year.

bruising will get worse each day for the first week. i remember i black and blue from the mid neck area to just outside the tip of my shoulder. one side was worse than the other and took longer for the swelling to go down after the inital break.

good luck and i hope you a speedy, non metallic, recovery....

 

[chevellecobra]

I broke my collar bone in exactly the same way....snowboarding and flipping forward. It was extremely painful. My x-ray looked about the same and they said to just let it heal. No surgery would help. So I wore that figure 8 harness for something like 6 weeks. The first week was the worst, especially trying to sleep sitting up. I went back to school and work after a week of bed rest.

It took me about 9 months to get fully back into weight lifting and not feel pressure or pain. It was a couple of years before I could no longer feel the bump where the two parts of the clavicle fused back together.

Good luck. Hopefully you heal quicker than I did. That was in January of my last year of college so it was not easy trying to recover.

 

[nlterminator]

Broke mine at 16 playing hockey. Was told at the time they normally just let them heal back together unless for cosmetic purposes someone didnt want a big bump. The downside I have seen from this over the years is I have had issues with sterno-clavical dislocations which seems to be a result of a slightly shorter collar bone due to the way it fused.

 

[Sirhc7897]

I had a ATV accident a few years back and broke my right clavicle (turned it to dust...didn't even show up on the X-ray)...

I had to have surgery. They put in a cadavers clavicle and held it all together with a titanium plate and a ton of set screws (my post X-ray looks like somebody left a comb where my clavicle used to be).

This was my experience (was 28-29 at the time):
I broke it on a saturday and was in for surgery the following Wednesday (thought I was going to have to have emergency surgery because there were fragments everywhere and they were worried I might puncture a lung). The night after the surgery was extremely painful but did ease up a little as the days went on.

The worst thing for me was that I had to sleep sitting up for several months (which was absolutely miserable). After a month they took me out of the sling (regular sling not one of those figure 8 things) and let me have minimal movement but no weight and I couldn't raise my arm. After about 6 months they cleared me for normal activity but I still couldn't sleep any way but sitting up or flat on my back as it was extremely painful to put any pressure on my right shoulder (laying on side or back).

It took me the better part of a year before I could sleep normal and do anything even remotely close to what I considered normal. After about a year it was pretty well good but if i hit it with something (like resting a rake, baseball bat, rifle, etc. on that shoulder to carry it) I would have this intense pain as it was hyper sensitive. Was almost 2 years before I was able to get back in a gym and initially that hurt like hell (was in a ice pack every night). It's been almost 4 years now and i don't even notice it anymore.

Recovery from that was hell though. Most painful thing I've ever experienced (and I've been through numerous knee surgeries, a shattered foot, and other repairs from enough moments of young stupidity that I'm challenging Lee Majors for the bionic man title)...

PM me if you want with any specifics questions and I'll be happy to try to offer you any pointers I can think of that helped me through it. It was a very depressing phase in my life (the lack of sleep and inability to be active was pretty tough). Hopefully your experience will be nowhere near as bad as mine...

 

[Panic661]

thanks for the info guys. i have been told by two docs i will have a plate on screws, mainly to restore normal function to my arm. im not in a figure 8. both docors agreed itd put me in severe pain.

i'm sitting straight up to sleep now. just woke up because i moved my arm and got this insane burning pain in my shoulder.

i have ibprofen and vicodin atm but trying to stick to ibprofen...pills make me nervous.

but from what im gathering here is recovery depends on the person..so this could suck more. :whine:

 

[Double"O"]

I've heard those are painful. Speedy recovery!

real bad!

I have broken my sternum, 2 ribs, my right radius and ulna and my right clavicle. the clavicle hurt way worse than the rest!!!The healing process was not as bad as the ribs and sternum though. The worst part however was learning to wipe my ass with my left hand lol

 

[fiveohhhstang]

did he go through surgery? how long did it take to heal up? prob diff since he was a baby as far as healing went but hell idk.

No, they actually said that babies bones can heal on their own when broken like that whereas in adults it's quite a bit harder. I would imagine he actually had it easier than you do, honestly. He healed in 6 weeks. It was a complete break, and by 6 weeks the bone looked like nothing had happened. Straight as an arrow. The only hard part was that since he was only a year old he wouldn't keep the sling on, so we couldn't really immobilize the arm. He learned pretty quick what hurt and what didn't, however.

Hope that you end up healing on your own.

Edit: Sorry, just saw that you probably will need surgery. Sorry to hear that, hope you heal quickly afterwards.