In need of help/advice

There is a fairly long thread about recovery from hip injury in Cake Stop - http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12571535 – you might get some insight from that.

I bought a Wattbike in Feb to help me rehab and recovery from a shattered femur. If you have restricted movement in the hip and thigh as I did and still do, it is easy to get on the Wattbike using crutches (unlike a bike on a turbo) and it is a stable platform – you’ll develop the technique pretty quickly.

Listen to the advice about weight bearing. Your ‘instructions’ about what you can/can’t do will change as the condition of the injury changes. I was on zero and then partial weight bearing until 6 months in because my fractures wouldn’t heal but I was still able to ride the Wattbike and it needed a bone graft to sort it all out. One thing I learnt is that there is absolutely no point rushing the very early stages of the recovery despite what you ‘think’ you can do.

I hope it heals and you recover quickly.

Will, I wasn’t fully non-weight bearing for the whole 6 months.

I started using the Wattbike as soon as the consultant told me that I could ‘toe touch’ on crutches and apply a standing weight of about 20% - that was probably about 10 weeks after the break and my initial op but don't forget that our injuries are different. I was then told to increase the weight bearing as the pain allowed over time to try to force the lack of healing which meant I upped the resistance and was able to pedal harder.

I was using my Wattbike on ‘1’ to start with, the lowest resistance but please bear in mind that I have the Pro model (because I’m a track sprinter and want the Wattbike for long-term use and training) and that equates to '5' on the Trainer.

The improvement and gains I got in mobility were great, it helped with reduction of the swelling, let me start driving sooner then I might have done and most importantly, stopped my head falling off!

Eddy.

wills640 wrote:

Really do appreciate you taking the time to advise me with this Eddy, I am going to talk to the consultant and Physio's tomorrow, also Wattbike as well. I'm having the damaged bones lazered this week to stimulate bone growth. Looking fwd to making some progress.
Did you sustain your injuries on the track?
Thanks again.
Will.

I had considered laser therapy but my fractures were so displaced that it would have been a waste of time and money. I know it's popular treatment with m/c racers.

There is a slight irony about how I broke my leg... despite the track racing and I'm also a motorcyclist (although 'retired' from doing track days), I broke it ice skating! One of the doctors told me that when she saw the amount of damage I'd managed to do, she thought it was done in a high speed m/c accident!

Good luck with all your conversations today. The folks at Wattbike are great to deal with.