Tib/Fib fracture
(3 discussions)
I recently suffered a spiral fracture in my Tibia and a normal fracture in my Fibula on November 18th and underwent surgery on the following day.
The doctor just cleared me to get my cast off and put into a walking boot of sorts. Although I am not able to put weight onto it as of yet, I was wondering if there were any exercises that I can do in order to get my range of motion back.
3 comments
Mark
Hi Jeff,Your injury is more serious than mine, but maybe some of what I’ve learned will help. I’m a pairs figure skater I broke my fib by falling on the ice while lifting my pair partner Vivian. The rule is, the guy has to protect the girl, so I brought her down on me. The doc said that mine “wanted to be a spiral fracture, but the boot saved it from being worse”. I started riding an excercise bike at the gym in my hard cast during the second week, as I found that the push from the thigh was tranferred through the cast to the pedal, not through the bones. In this way, I was able to keep my thigh somewhat strong. You might try it, just letting your booted foot ride around on the pedal at first while the good leg does the work. If you can push with the injured leg, even if it’s only on 2 or 3 resistance setting, you’ll begin to reverse the decline in strength in that leg. I was able to get up to level 12 while still in the hard cast with very little discomfort. I also started doing very light leg extensions and leg curls with the casted leg, letting pain be my guide. When I got the hard cast off (after a month), I got a walking boot, and was told I could only put 20 pounds pressure on it at first. I had to find a book the same height as my scale, and stand on it with my good foot while I leaned over until I had 20# on the scale. That’s not much. I walked with the cruthes and basically just started putting down my cast with very little weight on it. When the boot was off, I worked the joint with rubber resistance bands from every angle I could think of. Also, I was told to write the alphabet in the air with the bad foot, as this works the joint from every possible angle. I did this more times than I can count. I also started walking on my cruthes without the boot, putting a (very) little weight on my foot, just trying to get some heel-toe action going, since the boot doesn’t really give you any of that.Later, hundreds of toe raises and heel raises helped. At first on two feet, now I can do them one at a time. I’m just over thre months into my recovery. For walking, weight lifting (I’m a gym junkie) and running on the treadmill, I feel good, although the ankle is still sore. On the ice, I’m still having trouble with my right footed (injured side) jumps…the ones that take off and land on that foot. It hurts to take off and land (not terrible, but there. The “hops” aren’t quite there yet…foot arch, ankle strength, achilles. I’m about at 80% for skating.If you have any questions or want to talk, just send me an e-mail @ [email protected]. Anything I can do to help.Mark
RZ
I too suffered from a spiral tib/fib break on Sept 18. Had a rod inserted thru tib with screws to keep things alighned. No cast. On crutches for 3 months exactly, then off. Now doing 3 x weekly therapy. I personally think the cast inhibits healing and my doc never said it wasn’t necessary since I did the surgery. I never could do weight bearing the first 3 months but I was able to rotate the ankle/foot, leg and move it anyway I could to keep my range of motion from freezing up. I do suffer from tendonitis today after too much activity over the weekend but expect that to go away soon. I do limp a bit sometimes but am told things will improve over next several months. I swam during the first couple of months. but never put any weight on leg. I think that helped keep range of motion intact as well. My leg deffinately got weaker as the other got stronger but am working on that now.
ann schelve
I had a spiral fracture of the tib/fib due to a sking accident. I had surgery with plates and screws. The plate on the tibia was quite long. I wore a cast for 5 weeks, physical therapy for 6 weeks, now walking with a cane. I was so pleased as I had no pain the first weeks out of the cast, but now I have a tenderness over the medial ankle bone when I walk. Neither my Physical therapist nor my Dr. can tell me why. They just say it was a bad break and I must be patient. I know I am healing well, but just want to understand why I now have pain, when it was actually better in the earlier stages of healing.