coming back after wrist fracture / surgery

Southgate

I'm three weeks on from major Distal Radius surgery, incl. insertion of metal plates, on my wrist (multiple fractures sustained in a crit race). I should be out of the cast in another three weeks or so, and I was wondering what sort of riding issues to expect over the next few months / years.

I have been advised to stay off the bike for a couple of months, but I am rigging up the turbo this afternoon so I should be able to maintain at least base fitness. I have been offered some generic medical advice from the docs, but not specifically as it pertains to cycling. I usually train about 15 - 20 hours a week, and I hope to get back to those levels asap.

Obviously no two medical outcomes are going to be identical, but it would be great to hear the experiences (good or bad) of anyone who has suffered a badly smashed wrist.

FatTed

I suspect you can ride your trainer as much as you like. On the road control of your bike may well be an issue with a recent fractured wrist, perhaps this is why you have been advised to stay off your bike.

ArthurEWatts

I think you should keep rest otherwise your injury will become more serious. In previous stage such injuries can be cured through chiropractic treatment and at later stage it won't help. If you want to know details about chiropractic therapy visit site.

Southgate

^ A chiropractor is going to "cure" my broken wrist, and spinning my legs on a turbo at home is going to make my arm fall off or something? I guess you're paid per click to post this nonsense, right?

joeweston3

I broke my wrist just over a year ago in a crit race, admittedly not as badly as it sounds like you have, although i spent two weeks digging on it, telling my self to MTFU as I was insistent it was only a bad sprain, before eventually succumbing to a hospital appointment... I found one of the most immediate problems was strength in the wrist, it took me a long while to get this back, where I was using the wrist for long periods (e.g. digging) I would end up in a support. This often became a factor when sprinting on longer training rides. However, it has got me into the habit of relaxing my upper body more than I did before, as I found this far more comfortable when riding! My other main gripe is that where the heel of my palm made contact with the tarmac, the tissue still hasn't sorted it self, it still seems to bruise easily and I now often get a numbness in parts of the hand, something that is often made worse by the use of gel mitts! The wrist in question doesn't feel as mobile either, although is undoubtedly partially down to my own stupidity and refusal to accept anything was wrong! In regards to riding again, I started riding the moment I was able to operate my brake levers again, I was going out with a couple of mates whilst I had my cast on, having altered the set up of my bike, and the use of cross tops, I found I could get out on my bike okay, admittedly there was little question about changing gear! I'm not a big one for Doctors, I usually think they tell you not to do things 'just in case', as long as you're comfortable and safe, can brake sufficiently, I don't see why you couldn't get out once you have developed enough strength in the wrist, go out gently at first for a relatively short distance, and start building the distances up again. The worst part I found was that my legs wanted to go further, but it was my arm stopping me.

Best of Luck with your recovery mate!

Southgate

^ Thanks for your story, Joe.

I am now back riding on a heavy cheap commute bike and I hope to be back on my road bike this weekend. 10 weeks after surgery I have around 50% range of motion and about 30% strength, which is enough to handle the bike reasonably safely although I still can't pull on the bars or climb out of the saddle. After a year of physio I should be more or less back to normal, or close to normal.

tehtehteh

I broke my wrist a bit over 10 years ago, and when switching to road bars recently I've been getting numbness in the fingers of that hand and general wrist pain for a couple of days after riding, I found changing position on the bike so I wasn't leaning as hard on the bars helped - tilting the saddle back a little bit to make my body less forward biased and more balanced let me bend my arms a little on the bars, so where before I was pushing on the bars to hold up my upper body now it's holding itself up and the arms are just there for control

it gave me a sore lower back (and strangely a sore elbow) but the recovery time between rides was quicker than the wrist was, and I'm hoping the back pain will go away as it gains strength through more riding

tehtehteh

I should add that my wrist break didn't heal brilliantly, so now under strain my hand tends to twist in the socket which causes pain and weakness, if your bones have healed nicely then you may not have any issues like mine, just give it time to recover

I remember I couldn't pour a 4 pint bottle of milk on my cereal when I first came out of the cast, but the strength comes back through normal every day use more than anything else

dennisn

Southgate wrote:

I'm three weeks on from major Distal Radius surgery, incl. insertion of metal plates, on my wrist (multiple fractures sustained in a crit race). I should be out of the cast in another three weeks or so, and I was wondering what sort of riding issues to expect over the next few months / years.

I have been advised to stay off the bike for a couple of months, but I am rigging up the turbo this afternoon so I should be able to maintain at least base fitness. I have been offered some generic medical advice from the docs, but not specifically as it pertains to cycling. I usually train about 15 - 20 hours a week, and I hope to get back to those levels asap.

Obviously no two medical outcomes are going to be identical, but it would be great to hear the experiences (good or bad) of anyone who has suffered a badly smashed wrist.

So you're NOT going to listen to your Doctor? Instead you're going to go with opinions from the internet? Great idea.

Southgate

dennisn wrote:

So you're NOT going to listen to your Doctor? Instead you're going to go with opinions from the internet? Great idea.

An even better idea is to read the post before you reply with a sneering comment.

I have a broken wrist, not a broken leg.

The docs advised me to stay off the bike for a couple of months.

I said I was rigging up the turbo so I could maintain fitness. A turbo is stationary. I do not need to brake or steer or hold the bars- and hence using a turbo does not impact upon my wrist in any way. I would have thought this was obvious and I am surprised that I need to spell it out to you.

I did not solicit medical advice from forum users, as you ludicrously claimed. I asked users who had sustained similar injuries to share their experiences of how it affected their riding over the following months and years.

Southgate

tehtehteh wrote:

I broke my wrist a bit over 10 years ago, and when switching to road bars recently I've been getting numbness in the fingers of that hand and general wrist pain for a couple of days after riding, I found changing position on the bike so I wasn't leaning as hard on the bars helped - tilting the saddle back a little bit to make my body less forward biased and more balanced let me bend my arms a little on the bars, so where before I was pushing on the bars to hold up my upper body now it's holding itself up and the arms are just there for control

Thanks, that's very helpful. I did a century+ on my relaxed-geometry 'sportive bike' at the weekend and I put all the spacers back in to raise the bars. It wasn't too uncomfortable, but if the pain and swelling persists I'll think about playing around with the saddle.

dennisn

Southgate wrote:

dennisn wrote:

So you're NOT going to listen to your Doctor? Instead you're going to go with opinions from the internet? Great idea.

An even better idea is to read the post before you reply with a sneering comment.

I have a broken wrist, not a broken leg.

The docs advised me to stay off the bike for a couple of months.

I said I was rigging up the turbo so I could maintain fitness. A turbo is stationary. I do not need to brake or steer or hold the bars- and hence using a turbo does not impact upon my wrist in any way. I would have thought this was obvious and I am surprised that I need to spell it out to you.

I did not solicit medical advice from forum users, as you ludicrously claimed. I asked users who had sustained similar injuries to share their experiences of how it affected their riding over the following months and years.

None of the above is true. You want someone to tell you that it's OK to do whatever you want, as opposed to what your doctor says. So, I'll say it.

Do whatever you want and it won't effect your healing. What do doctors know anyway?

Southgate

dennisn wrote:

Southgate wrote:

dennisn wrote:

So you're NOT going to listen to your Doctor? Instead you're going to go with opinions from the internet? Great idea.

An even better idea is to read the post before you reply with a sneering comment.

I have a broken wrist, not a broken leg.

The docs advised me to stay off the bike for a couple of months.

I said I was rigging up the turbo so I could maintain fitness. A turbo is stationary. I do not need to brake or steer or hold the bars- and hence using a turbo does not impact upon my wrist in any way. I would have thought this was obvious and I am surprised that I need to spell it out to you.

I did not solicit medical advice from forum users, as you ludicrously claimed. I asked users who had sustained similar injuries to share their experiences of how it affected their riding over the following months and years.

None of the above is true.

Are you on drugs? Or merely functionally illiterate?

I have a broken wrist, not a broken leg.

FACT

The docs advised me to stay off the bike for a couple of months.

FACT - read my original post: "I have been advised to stay off the bike for a couple of months"

I said I was rigging up the turbo so I could maintain fitness.

FACT - read my original post: "I am rigging up the turbo this afternoon so I should be able to maintain at least base fitness"

I did not solicit medical advice from forum users, as you ludicrously claimed. I asked users who had sustained similar injuries to share their experiences of how it affected their riding over the following months and years.

FACT - read my original post: "I was wondering what sort of riding issues to expect over the next few months / years" and "Obviously no two medical outcomes are going to be identical, but it would be great to hear the experiences (good or bad) of anyone who has suffered a badly smashed wrist."

Now, I don't know what your problem is, or why you feel the need to make things up and put words in my mouth. You come across as deranged, abusive, and weird. Please go away.

kingstonian

Mate, just use the turbo until your wrist is recovered enough to enable you to ride on the road safely.

And I'd use your doctors/specialists advice as to when that will be, they know better than any random poster on the internet can possibly have.

Southgate

Kingstonian wrote:

Mate, just use the turbo until your wrist is recovered enough to enable you to ride on the road safely. And I'd use your doctors/specialists advice as to when that will be, they know better than any random poster on the internet can possibly have.

Thanks, that's exactly what I have done and I am now back on my bike after two months as per doctor's orders. I didn't ask anyone here for advice on when to start riding again, and nor would I for obvious reasons.

What I did ask for was to hear the experiences of other people who had suffered a similar injury so I might get some idea of what problems I might expect in the coming months and years as pertains specifically to riding a bike. Two or three members posted their experiences, which I found extremely helpful.

kingstonian

Southgate wrote:

Kingstonian wrote:

Mate, just use the turbo until your wrist is recovered enough to enable you to ride on the road safely. And I'd use your doctors/specialists advice as to when that will be, they know better than any random poster on the internet can possibly have.

Thanks, that's exactly what I have done and I am now back on my bike after two months as per doctor's orders. I didn't ask anyone here for advice on when to start riding again, and nor would I for obvious reasons.

What I did ask for was to hear the experiences of other people who had suffered a similar injury so I might get some idea of what problems I might expect in the coming months and years as pertains specifically to riding a bike. Two or three members posted their experiences, which I found extremely helpful.

Great, glad you find the replies helpful. It is always really difficult to try to compare injuries, recovery times etc to what someone else has experienced as these can vary wildly, hence me suggesting what I did.

Not sure if you are having a pop at me or not in your post above, but I will leave you to it if you are.

Southgate

^ No, not having a pop, just correcting your misapprehension that I had been soliciting medical advice from random strangers. dennisn invented this and unfortunately it seems to have taken on a life of it's own! Thanks for your comments, which I'm sure were made in good faith.

kingstonian

Southgate wrote:

^ No, not having a pop, just correcting your misapprehension that I had been soliciting medical advice from random strangers. dennisn invented this and unfortunately it seems to have taken on a life of it's own! Thanks for your comments, which I'm sure were made in good faith.

ok, thanks for clarifying.

The reason I posted what I did was that after a knee op I asked pretty much what you asked, and the responses I got were in reality not of much use as the nature of my op and the post-op rehabilitation were markedly different - just the reality of having a complex injury, I guess.

By the way, I grew up in Enfield (Bush Hill Park, to be precise) so if you are in Southgate in North London then we're from the same neck of the woods.

Southgate

^ Yeah, I'm Enfield based and the main reason I like it up here is I can cycle out into Hertfordshire or Essex in half an hour or so. Sorry for being a bit prickly earlier, I was getting irritated by dennisn's bizarre accusations that I am ignoring medical advice. I have no idea where he got that idea from, but he's holding on to it despite it being a figment of his imagination.

Personally, I find reading about other's experiences quite helpful, although of course my medical outcome may differ in some respects. The docs and the physios are pretty good at fixing you up and giving generic advice. Where they are less able to help is when you need very specific advice about how, and what ways, the injury might affect your ability to do certain activities, e.g. cycling. And in fact how cycling might (or might not) cause additional problems, or exacerbate existing ones.

Anyway, hope your knee recovered well!

davidof

Southgate wrote:

I'm three weeks on from major Distal Radius surgery, incl. insertion of metal plates, on my wrist (multiple fractures sustained in a crit race). I should be out of the cast in another three weeks or so, and I was wondering what sort of riding issues to expect over the next few months / years.

I had a very bad wrist break including metal and a bone graft to hold it all together. I was riding a bike the second they removed the X-fix and put on a resin cast - about 4 weeks after the accident. I had to as I was unable to drive and had to get to work about 7 miles away. It was ok but not fun due to vibrations.

Of course the docs were against this but no long term problems but it is a risk.

keef66

Dennis is just grumpy because it's raining. I've just checked the weather forecast for Toledo and it looks like he'll get a decent ride on Sunday.

I've not broken my wrist since I was 11; did it saving a penalty low to my left. PE teacher bandaged it up thinking it was sprained. Mother, ex-nurse, went berserk when I got home, not least because my fingers were going blue. A&E the following morning saw me x-rayed and in a plaster cast, which I immediately took to show the PE teacher . Simple break, healed pretty quickly, remember riding my bike with the cast still on. That was 45 years ago though; I'd hate to do the same thing now...