Comment by wkirby
4 days ago
I suffered a very similar break playing soccer. ER surgeon asked if I fell off a roof. 3 metal plates and 15 screws later I was non-weight bearing for 14 weeks. I lost almost 5 inches in circumference from my left thigh while waiting to put weight back on that leg.
My post-break recovery has not been as good as yours sounds. Almost 3 years later and I rate my ankle at 75% of what its sibling is capable of. I had follow-up surgery to remove one of the plates and clean up scar tissue, and _that_ surgeon was appalled at how long I was immobilized.
Anecdata and all that, but my personal experience says waiting for weight ain’t it.
Sorry to hear about the outcome on your leg, I am sure you've tried lots of things to beef up your muscle. Just looking at my two legs I can still see a slight difference in calf thickness.
One thing I didn't appreciate is that in a break the bone is the easy part, but getting the muscle back or preserving it is the hard part.
For sure! Not to mention all the tendons and nerves. My recovery continues, as I’m sure yours does too — I’m back to my pre-injury PRs for most weight lifting, and my goal for this year is to match my pre-injury mile time.
All things considered I’m still pretty lucky. This could have happened when I’m much older and been debilitating for life.
I wonder how and when they choose to remove plates, vs. leaving them in. They left mine in, and when I originally asked them, they mentioned that there was significantly more risk in removing it than leaving it in.
20 years on, and it's still hanging in there.
Unless we have a clear indication, plates are not meant to be removed. For example, plating children we usually remove the plate as to not interfere with growth, or in some cases a fibula plate can irritate the tendons and should be removed, or in cases of infection.
I asked to have them removed because my physical therapist believed they were impinging on a nerve, preventing me from regaining mobility in my toes. They didn’t want to but I kept insisting.
What's your leg circumference at, now?
Mine is also smaller, due to patella tendinopathy.
They are within 1 inch of each other, which is fine with me. I haven’t measured in over a year, I know there’s still a strength imbalance but that’s not what feels limiting to me anymore.