Broken collarbone

jonnyboy77

No bike commuting for a while now. Last night I caught a slippy corner and landed on my right shoulder. Clavicle is in 5 pieces and very painful!

Passers by were awesome, one stored my bike the other an off duty nurse fixed me a sling and drove me to A&E, helmet was a potential life saver/damage limiter and will need replacing when I'm fit to get back on the bike.

Be careful out there!

Thanks

Jon

Lancslad

Ouch I did mine in 3 pieces back in june and its still not fully healed. I had mine pinned are they going to pin yours?

This is why my o.h has banned me cycling to work till weather improves.

Good luck with the recovery.

Wallace1492

Sorry to hear.... not the best...

The Rookie

Ouch,
Glad you had the help you needed though, restores ones faith and all that.

GWS

Simon

Freshfunkmeister

....ouch. Get well soon. At least this is the season to be indoors in the warm n'dry anyway...

benno68

Good luck for a speedy recovery.

I broke left one in August - was back on the bike in six weeks luckily. I too was very grateful to my helmet which took an impact!

jonnyboy77

Thanks for the kind words. I'm hoping to get back on the bike as soon as possible, without rushing it too soon.

For those with experience did you do anything special for recovery?

Thanks

Jon

Lancslad

get a picture of it!

Mr Plum

Get well soon mate!

Had a couple of moments myself that have been stark reminders of how easy it is to loose the front end in this weather.

jonnyboy77

Lancslad wrote:

get a picture of it!

I wish I'd taken a picture of the x ray - the right clavicle has 4 breaks! I'll see what the shoulder looks like in the mirror

benno68

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Thanks for the kind words. I'm hoping to get back on the bike as soon as possible, without rushing it too soon.

For those with experience did you do anything special for recovery?

Thanks

Jon

Follow the doc's advice.

Also, keep a good supply of decent pain killers close to hand especially for the first week, get up an hour earlier to get showered and dressed if you need to be somewhere on time

Get a sign "I fell off my bike", can't remember how many times I was asked what happened!

Blue Meanie

Lucky B4st4rd! Wish I was getting lifts to work, got any spare slings?

deffler

Bad crack for yer mate, hope it heals quickly so you can get back on it

Lancslad

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Lancslad wrote:

get a picture of it!

I wish I'd taken a picture of the x ray - the right clavicle has 4 breaks! I'll see what the shoulder looks like in the mirror

If you ask they might burn you a copy of it. As long as they remove your name etc it shouldnt be an issue. In fact I got a copy of mine to take to my local fracture clinic because I had my accident a couple hundred miles away from home so they just thrust a disc into my hand and told me I needed to hand it in when I went for my appointment.

P.s. i'm assuming they are digital there!

gbsahne001

Tough break, did my left one years ago. Best thing I was told was to keep it mobile, so that you retain full movement once it's healed.

I guess it depends upon how bad the break is though, as others have said listen to the medics.

hfidgen

Hope you heal up quickly! Keep drinking plenty of milk

little wiser

Go and see Brian Simpson best thing i ever did got mine smashed up by a nice car driver and was in lots of pain went to see him and 90% off the pain went away he also fitted me with the correct type of sling not the normal nhs rubbish.
He is a awesome guy who treats lots of sports men and women, when i was there a dancer from paris had come to see him .
If you want any info pm me or google him trust me im not a doctor

jonnyboy77

Got back on the bike for the first commute yesterday. First real ride of the bike since Dec 6th last year.

Feel so much better for doing it too. New lid and bike freshly serviced, the weather was a pleasant bonus too!

The collar bone is not fully healed, but no pain and shoulder movement is good if not perfect - plenty of physio still to go ...

Cheers

Jon

mudcow007

i hit a car when i was 14 totally and utterly my fault, car driver stopped checked i was alright and drove off, i didnt realise i had broken my collar bone stood up tried to straighten my wonky front wheel i fell over in agony

i then had to walk about 5 miles to my sisters house

not pretty at all, mine wasnt pinned or anything but it took a good 6 weeks til i was proper riding again

optimisticbiker

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Got back on the bike for the first commute yesterday. First real ride of the bike since Dec 6th last year.

Feel so much better for doing it too. New lid and bike freshly serviced, the weather was a pleasant bonus too!

The collar bone is not fully healed, but no pain and shoulder movement is good if not perfect - plenty of physio still to go ...

Cheers

Jon

Good for you... Are they making you do those stretches behind your head to get shoulder mobility again? I recall they were the painful ones...

I broke my left collarbone in 4 pieces July 2005 when I came off in Regents Park - got pushed into the kerb by a gold Porsche and caught a protruding kerbstone. Got back on, cycled to UCH A&E one-handed, locked the bike up and walked into the reception. Told the triage nurse I'd broken my collar bone, she asked me how I knew and I rotated my shoulder and you could hear the bones grinding... she went white! I must have been on adrenaline at the time cos i dont recall any pain till much later when they put it in a sling. Took 12 weeks to heal and I was back on the bike after 4 months but didnt really get back into it til the following Spring.

daniel_b

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Thanks for the kind words. I'm hoping to get back on the bike as soon as possible, without rushing it too soon.

For those with experience did you do anything special for recovery?

Thanks

Jon

Ouchie

Mine was only one break, hopefully yours will repair itself unaided.

My local hospital gave me a pretty poor cloth sling that did up with safety pins, my first job was to prder a proper one of this ilk for around £10


Made a mahoosive difference, in that you could take it off and put it on by yourself, and you could adjust the lift if you can picture it, as sometimes it would start to hurt in one position, so it was easy enough to alter it peridically up or down.

I followed the doctors advice, and literally did bugger all with it for the full 6 weeks.

He showed me the X-ray afterwards, and said it could not have gone better with surgery, so that was a good result.

Within 3-4 days of breaking mine, I had proper exruciating 'take your breath away' kind of pain, difficult to describe, but you just have to sit tight and it does subside in a minute or two - not sure what it was, maybe the bone attempting to start knitting back together.

I didn't bother with any painkilelrs though, just tried to treat it with plenty of care.

For sleeping I slept on my back to start with, and put a pillow under my left arm/shoulder to keep it up to height, hate sleeping on my back, so ended up sleeping on my side like normal, bunched my hand into a fist, and supported the arm through the night in that position - amazing but I woke up in that same position many times, so the body must know not to fidget!

I chose not to risk it on the bike any sooner than they said, they told me 6 weeks, and I gave it the full 6 weeks, it didn't seem worth the risk to me of an extra week early for risk of setting it back further.

Yours sounds a bit more complicated than mine, but fingers crossed it all knits back together in good time, at least you should be back up and running for the bulk of summer - looking on the bright side.

Thinking back, it's almost exactly 3 years ago I did mine, was mid to late April.

Cheers

Dan

jonnyboy77

I think it has been a bit more complicated than the 'average' broken collarbone (if there is such a thing!) but now the complication appears to be a case of 'adhesive capsulitis' in the shoulder joint, potentially caused by the impact my shoulder sustained - 14st hit the deck solely on my shoulder

My doctor is now taking steps to alleviate the shoulder with physio and now a dose of hydrodilatation ...

For now I can ride the bike comfortably for 3 miles each way (short commute!) and most normal activities have resumed, just need to rediscover full range of motion of strength.

If any one reads this having just broken their collarbone, my biggest regret was not being more forceful with the doctors about looking at motion and physio sooner - with hind sight I would be 4+ weeks further ahead by now - but hindsight is a wonderful thing ...

Cheers for all the feedback folks

Jon