Here are some photos I snapped of the x-rays taken at the Ottawa General Hospital, at various points after my cycling accident:
May 30th – a couple of hours after the accident
T+4 days
T+19 days
In three weeks, I will get another x-ray. I have been warned that I will need to avoid any intense physical activity for a further three months after that, meaning I will miss most of the summer cycling season.
[Update: 9 July 2010] Here is an x-ray from today, showing a bit more of the affected area. The biggest difference from the T+19 shot is the round area of bone forming underneath the fracture area. The doctor told me another should form later underneath that sharp protrusion:
T+40 days
[Update: 13 August 2010] Today, the doctor said they might eventually need to operate, to remove that sharp spike of bone. I am supposed to go back in three months for another x-ray.
T+75 days
[Update: 24 November 2010] I told the doctor about how my shoulder has been aching a fair bit, since it started getting cold. He set me up with an appointment for some physiotherapy.
T+178 days
[Update: 2 March 2011] This will be the final x-ray in this series, as the doctor is now satisfied that things are healing properly. He told me the bone will still be remodelling itself for at least a year.
T+275 days
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What’s it supposed to look like? It doesn’t exactly seem to look… connected.
Clavicle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oddly, I think seeing the x-rays today made my shoulder hurt a lot more than it did before.
It’s like my brain is saying: “Wow! That’s a real injury. I ought to be careful about how I move.”
Did the doctor mention if it’s healing as it’s supposed to be? When it’s healed, will it look more or less as it did before you broke it?
The emergency room doctors told me that I would be ‘permanently deformed.’ Thankfully, that just means a bit of a bump and some asymmetry.
Supposedly, the bone will actually be stronger after it heals than it was before.
It is apparently healing essentially as it should be. I hope that spike-shaped protrusion on the upper bone fragment goes away eventually.
I’m pretty sure I was biking within 3 months of breaking my collarbone. In fact, I think I was biking within 6 weeks, although carefully, not in traffic, & I was very aware that it wasn’t properly healed because it hurt when I put much weight on the arm. In my experience some doctors are much more cautious than others and there is a range of ‘we don’t advise this’ that goes from ‘really, really, really don’t do this – doom will follow!’ all the way to ‘well, I don’t recommend it, but if you do then I doubt anything bad will happen’. All in all, my guess is that it’s hard to know when you’ll be biking again without seeing how the collarbone does, how you feel about the potential risks, & how much your doctors advise against it.
Ouch!
That sharp part looks like it could be a future health risk. If you get hit in a certain way, it could be driven forward into your shoulder. Or it could break off and become a pointy disconnected fragment.
Have you considered an x-ray pinup calendar?
It’s amazing how much it’s changed in such a short time! I hope you continue to recover steadily.
-L.
I wonder if drew’s point from his break has gone away yet. It stayed relatively pointy for quite some time.
If you find out, please let me now.
Also, how long ago was it broken?
Hey I broke mine about a year ago playing football and its actually very similar to yours. Took me 5 months till I could even workout again. I broke it again my 1st game back this season. I have no clue why Ottawa doctors dont recommend any surgery… Im back in a sling just like i was before
Perhaps it is because of the cold, but my shoulder has been aching a lot lately.
I have more x-rays on Wednesday.
Plastic surgery
A newly developed material should make it easier to mend broken bones
MUCH of modern medicine is high-tech wizardry. Broken bones, however, are still dealt with in a clumsy, old-fashioned way that frequently involves screws, nails and pins. Even the simplest operation can result in infections and incomplete healing if those devices are not placed as they should be. In dramatic circumstances—for instance on a battlefield, where surgeons cannot use X-ray machines and there is no proper operating theatre—the need for so many bits and bobs can make effective surgery impossible. Thousands of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, have had limbs amputated after injuries that could have been treated at any hospital.
It was with them in mind that DARPA, the research-funding agency of America’s Department of Defence, approached a group of scientists at the University of Texas, Houston, two years ago. DARPA wanted something that army doctors could carry in their bags and use to mend injured limbs on the spot, before amputation became inevitable. The researchers, led by Mauro Ferrari and Ennio Tasciotti (who have since moved to the Methodist Hospital Research Institute in the same city) came up with an idea that could change orthopaedic surgery once and for all: a material that surgeons can implant or even inject; which fixes a fractured bone quickly; and which then leads to its full regeneration, with no need for nails and pins.
The material in question, the product of a collaboration between biologists, nanoengineers and mathematicians, is based on a chemical called polypropylene fumarate. It is activated at 37°C, the temperature of the human body. When applied to a broken bone it solidifies and works like a glue, bringing the two parts of the fracture together. That is necessary, as any orthopaedic surgeon knows, because if a gap of more than a few millimetres is left between fragments the bone will never heal.
The key to success, says Dr Tasciotti, is timing. Stem cells must reach the site of the fracture, proliferate and turn into osteoblasts at the right moment. If they start to specialise too early, there will not be enough bone cells to heal the fracture. This is where the mathematicians of the group came in. Using computer simulations, they found the ideal thickness for the silicon spheres and the ideal size for their pores, so that the spheres degrade and release their content at the right rate. While this happens, the polypropylene fumarate becomes integrated with the body thanks to protein fragments called peptides placed on its surface. These make it look like human tissue and thus prevent its rejection by the patient’s own cells.
One lesson from cycling: pavement is dangerously hard.
i recently just broke my clavicle, its been six weeks i go to the doctors tuesday, but did it still hurt at six weeks? and the deformation of the bone on mine… i can still feel the bone thats broken. idk but it still feels broke
Thank you so much, these X-rays give me hope. I recently have broken mine, and it is not even touching. I don’t like the sound of surgery, so thank you thank you
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