Humerus fracture recovery

I read everyones experiences and thought I would add my own.  I'm a 6'0 190lb white male.  On 11/20/06 I suffered a distal fracture of my right humerous arm-wrestling.  At the time my bench max was around 275-300lbs.  The reason the fracture occured was simple.  I let my shoulder get inside my hand and snap!  There was drinking involved.  I went to the ER on friday night and they told me I needed to see an Orthopedist and they didn't have any and that I would have to wait until monday... looking back I should have went to a sports injury clinic that night... but didn't and waited til monday.  The pain wasn't that bad unless I moved. 
 
I did some research over the weekend and had a long talk with the doc on Monday.  There were basically 3 options:  1) plate and screws 2)rod 3)no surgery and wear a brace and let it heal naturally.  I went with the plate and screws, and here is why.
 
The rod was ruled out due to the location of the fracture.  If you cast/sling it will not heal perfectly straight.  They accept that as okay because of the fact that your shoulder rotates and even if your humerus isn't straight your shoulder will compensate.  The problem with a cast/sling is that it leaves your shoulder and elbow fix for a long period of time and there is a chance of losing your ROM longterm, even with PT.  Also, it is difficult to heal sometimes because when you move your arm tends to move too and slows the healing process and it PAINFUL.  They plate allows you to have full ROM in as little as 5 weeks, which I had.  It keeps your elbow and shoulder from "locking up."  They down side to the plate is a scar.  So I chose the plate.
 
What I haven't heard anyone mention is radial nerve palsy or "wrist drop." The nerve that controls your forarm is wrapped around you humerus.  25% of patients that break their humerus armwrestling experience this.  I did also.  This was by far the scariest part of the accident.  That is not knowing if you are going to be able to use your hand ever again.  At 6 months it started to come back. In between 6-8 months I was regaining strenght and now... 11 months later it is 100%.  I researched the palsy and found that 100% of the patients with nerve palsy from armwrestling made full recoveries yet I was still scared.  Imagine losing the function of your dominant hand.  You feel helpless.
 
It is now 11 months from the accident.  My bench is around 185-200lbs.  This will increase as i feel perfectly fine, but I am still working on the strength I lost from not using my arm for such a long period of time.
 
Closing comments.  You will get better.  Don't freak out.  Even if you have nerve palsy.  You just have to wait it out, which is hard for athletes to do.  I recommend getting a plate so you can start moving your arm as soon as possible (even though I couldn't move my hand from the palsy).  HANG IN THERE.  And don't arm wrestle!
 

Week 14 update.  Strengths coming back to normal now.  The doctor discharged me after 3 months and so did the physio.  I can bench 55kg no problems but I don’t want to push things too hard yet because the physio said I shouldn’t really do weights until 6 months has passed.  It feels pretty normal though so I have upped my dumbbells to 14kg which is close to what I had before the break (15kg) which is good.  It would seem that those fears of me not being able to bench properly or having an incorrectly arm action was all down to weakness in the arm and not any permanent problem because now I’m stronger the arm behaves normally in a nice clean action.  It just takes time to recover I suppose. 
 
I think movement is at almost if not 100% and strength is about >80%.  The biggest thing I noticed recently is at about the 3 month mark the swell of bone/cartilage which I can feel under the skin around me tricep area disappeared.  It was never visible but if you run your hand down the outside of the arm there was a dip and lump and I just thought that would be permanent although the docs said it might go down a bit.. and now it has.  It feels much more normal now, still a small bump but it feels a bit like that in the good arm so nothing major.  The only thing that might cause a slight twinge in the arm at the moment is very fast moments/jerks like air boxing for example but give it a couple of months and I’m sure it’ll be fine.  I have the latest and last x-ray pics which are unfortunately quite blurred.  Notice there is still a gap between the bones.  For some reason the x-ray guy covered the details of my own x-ray with his hand :s.

It seems that letting the arm heal naturally worked out well for me.  Good luck to everyone else recovering.  

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Again 13 weeks from break. You may need to save the picture and then view it.

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it's been a few days shy of 4 months since the date of the injury. i'm discharged from out-patient clinic today. arm function is at almost 100% and strength is at about 80%. the guy saying that the arm will never be perfectly straight if you opt not to do the surgery is right. since my break is at the distal part of humerus, my forearm is now angulated inward about 5 degrees(varus deformity) and it's permanent. at the time of injury, i wasn't really given the options and the doc decided not to operate for me. I did some research online later and found out that my conditions certainly didn't warrant a surgery. so at least medically speaking, the doc made the right decision.  all in all i guess i can't really complain. 5 degrees of varus is not bad at all. 16 degrees is quoted as acceptable in the studies i found online. the arm feels a little different but it's not necessarily a bad thing. and surgery has its cons also.
 
the doc is ok with me starting to work out again, which i had been doing that for the last 6 weeks or so. i can do all the exercises i did before the injury without any problems although i can still feel a bit pain when the weight gets heavy. my bench and power clean are at 40kg. bicep curl is at 10kg. these all will improve in time. I'm back on track. to all of you having the same injury, good luck recovering! and don't arm wrestle again. i think people who arm wrestle need to be made more aware of the high risk of breaking your humerus.

I broke my left humerus 5 1/2 weeks ago (I'm left handed). I broke it right at the top of the arm where the joint is and had quite a few breaks in the bone. I've had quite a few broken bones in the past but this one has turned out to be the worst - despite my expectations. I'm a 37 year old male, 6'1", 156 lbs and was very fit as I was a competitive endurance athlete. I broke it in a dirtbike accident (among other injuries at the time) and spent 4 days in the hospital trauma centre. Doctors decided not to do surgery but to check on it regularly to make sure it was healing well. If it wasn't then they would do surgery. It turns out they won't have to do surgery - thank goodness.

I spent the first week and a half in a sling and then no sling from there on out. (Doctors didn't tell me to sleep sitting up although I've since read that it is often recommended as gravity helps keep the arm in a bit of traction.) When I used the sling I had to take my arm out of the sling several times a day and do ROM (range of motion) exercises. My elbow swelled up and my whole arm and part of my chest was bruised. I developed carpal tunnel symptoms in my wrist and an infection in my elbow due to all the swelling. My elbow, forearm and wrist often hurt more than my break. As many people do, I thought the Dr. may have missed an elbow injury. This was not the case. I had to take antibiotics for the infection and it took about 3 1/2 weeks for infection to go away.

When I left the hospital they put me on Tylenol 3 with codeine and that's what I've been using since then. The pain is worse than the 3 broken ankles and other injuries I've had in the past. The doctors say it's because it's a high impact injury. I celebrate when I'm able to sleep for more than 2-2 1/2 hrs at a time. Two T3's are not usually enough to kill the pain and I often have to use an ice pack (gel) on my arm to numb the pain which allows me to fall asleep. Because of the injury I can only sleep in one position and this makes it harder to stay asleep. My whole body gets sore and I usually wake up in 2 to 3 hours, at which time I get another ice pack and try to go back to sleep. In the day time the pain is chronic and makes it hard for me to concentrate if I'm not on pain killers. I use an ice pack to reduce the swelling and manage the pain. Those gel packs are way better than ice! At this point I use 1-5 T3's a day and try to tough it out without the medication.

For the first 5 weeks after the injury my ROM and strength was so limited that I feared that I had nerve damage or something and that my arm would never recover. Then very quickly my strength and ROM started to improve. When I say quickly I just mean that it was almost overnight where I was able move my arm a bit. At this point, when standing I can only lift my arm forward 2' from straight at my side and about 1 1/2' out to the side. If I'm laying on my side I cannot lift my elbow away from my rib cage. I'm always lifting my broken arm with my other arm. I do daily ROM and strength exercises and have started to be more positive about this injury now that I see improvements. Be patient with this injury. The pain with this injury is usually quite high for 1-2 months and it takes quite a while to rehab it. I've found that using a broom stick handle has really been helpful in doing rehab exercises. Be creative with it and find different ways to use the stick to increase your ROM and strength. Good luck with your rehabilitation and stay positive.

7 week update (1 1/2 weeks since last post)
I can notice the muscles building up in my shoulder and my ROM is improving a bit everyday. I stopped using Tylenol 3's with codeine about a week ago because they didn't seem to be working anymore and I'm a bit worried about the possibility of becoming addicted to them (nasty things often happen to people who take prescription meds for an injury that remains painful for a prolonged period). In addition T3's contain caffeine which can make it hard to sleep.

My biggest problem now is that I have INSOMNIA. I am only able to sleep about 1 1/2 - 4 hours each night. This has been going on for about a week and it's making me kinda crazy. I've never had insomnia before. My arm still aches and I'm able to 'suck it up' without meds during most of the day but the aching pain interferes with my ability to fall asleep. I use ibuprofin or extra strength tylenols but they don't seems to help much. I try not to use pain killers because they aren't very good for your body. That being said, people that use pain medication in the period right after injuries apparently heal faster and have fewer complications than those who don't use pain medications. I'm obviously past that early stage.

I need pain killers after I do my physiotherapy routine (about 35-40 minutes of continuous ROM and strength exercises), and I've found that doing physio every second day helps me more than doing it everyday. It makes sense from what we've learned from bodybuilding. There's also the exercise one gets from just going through the daily routine which is a workout in itself to some extent. Hopefully it won't be long before I'm able to sleep again- I sure don't want to use sleeping pills from all the stuff I've read about them.

11 week update
Pain is low enough now for me to go through the day and sleep without any painkillers. I still have chronic pain but it's not usually enough to keep me from sleeping. I'm struggling with increasing my range of motion (ROM) and have to start going to physiotherapy every week. When I get to the edge of my ROM I experience acute pain. My upper arm only goes up about 50 degrees from horizontal when I lift it in front of me with assistance from my other arm. When I lift it out to my side I can't get it above horizontal. I can't hold it horizontally and need to lift it into that position with a pole. I'm concerned that I'll never have 100% full ROM but the doctor seems confident. I didn't tell the doctor how much it hurts when I do physio but I don't think it'll make much difference. I hope I don't have any complicating problems with my shoulder. I was lifting 2lb weights for the last 2 weeks but the doctor said I shouldn't do ANY weights until I get 100% range of motion. Even typing on this computer hurts. Oh well, I'm lucky things weren't worse. Having the injury at the top of my humerus must be causing more problems than breaking it somewhere in the middle.

Well, my saga has been going on for 6 months now.  Broke my humerus, midshaft after a fall at a work function in SF in late June. Pretty bad break as you can see from the picture. 
 
Went 3 months treating conservatively, but it didn't heal.  Decided on the surgery and had it October 5.  Bone is pretty healed, but still not filled in at the 3 month mark, but am hoping for it to be completed in February.
 
I was doing pretty good on lifting before the accident, 185 bench, trainer 3 days a week.  Just started going back this week.  How did you all ease back into chest exercises?  I'm still a little shy about using that arm or strainig it.  And I'm not supposed to lift anything over ten pounds yet.
 
 


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7 weeks in the hope that the bone would form a union naturally

broke arm 2/14/08 like yours...clean break, spiral fracture [and everyone else here/same reason]. 7 weeks heal is good.  I just switched to a Sarmiento brace today...no open surgery..scared, will i ever get my old arm back ever?? :(
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~Week 14 week update.  Decided to just add to my entry. Saw xrays today Could still see fracture. NickUK looks like he had more bone on a lateral pic, but doc said it was good. There's a slight gap as in NickUK's pick, but this just means it'll take longer to fill in the spongy bone in the center. Started PT early this month and have gotten most ROM back. Still need help hyperextending arm, supinating (palms up) the forearm, and getting the frozen shoulder to unfreeze in the farthest Ranges of motion. I'm still trying to get back my life in the gist of things and after seeing some horrible videos on utube, I even wrote a contact email to PAC (proarmwrestling conference) to put some warnings on their espn shows bc they glorify such a dangerous sport that people definitely dont know any better.

Need a little help!  Here is my story late last June I was playing on my softball team and i was throwing a ball from the outfield to the catcher for a play at the plate before you know it I looked at my arm and it looked like it was dangling there with no life.  I had spiral fractured my humurus in my right arm. The doctor had to do surgery where he inserted 2 plates and six screws on top of it I had radial and axillery nerve damage to my arm hand and wrist. 
 
I had to wear this crazy contraption on my hand so my fingers could go up and down freely it was like a rubberband mechanism with rods and bands.  It looked like a freddy kruegger hand, crazy stuff.  Anyway at the time of the break I was in tip top shape and stronger then ever.  My doctor couldnt explain why it happened he said it was a freak accident.  Two months prior to the incident me and a friend were wrestling around and he put me in an armbar and pulled up to far my elbow hurt for a month but I worked the pain away at the gym.  I think he hairline fractured my arm but the doc said it cant be.
 
My nerves took forever to come back to the point where I had to see a nerve specialist he told me that it probably happened because my muscles and tendons were tight. My arm, wrist and hand literally did not have function till February this year eight months after surgery.  My hand is still a little tingley and my arm is sometimes sore when i wake up in the morning.  I also have a little pain by my elbow as well.
 
Anyway I am back at the gym trying to get back to being in the best physical shape I can be.  The summertime is coming and the ladies do not want and out of shape tub a lard.  It is real tough from benching 265 to now literally 65 pounds.  I used to curl 45's now its 15's.  I do not really care about my strength that much at this point I am trying to get lean and cut but I still want to be strong at the same time.
 
What exercises can I do to strengthen my right arm in the quickest time possible without hurting myself?
 
 
 

Sorry about the arm. I think ppl have all gotten better and have abandoned the db. Whatever you decide or learn, maybe it can help future ppl with the same injury if u post.

I wished I found this thread prior to my accident. I broke my arm through arm wrestling a week and a half ago. I was as shocked as anyone. The pain was unbelievable. It happened at work. I tend to be labeled as the big guy since no one else really works out like I do (or did). We hired a new guy who is also kind of big. Well, it became a mob mentality and all my co-workers wanted to see us go at it. There was a voice inside telling me no because I have a history of rotator cuff issues as well as elbow plus I had recently eased up on power training and was doing more cardio because my blood pressure is high. Unfortunately, I let my concern about what my co-workers thought outweigh my other concerns, a mistake I will never make again. Well, we went at it for ten seconds or so, he had an initial advantage on me, I pushed back and then my humerus just snapped. I felt my training career flash before me. I am about 245, bench of around 300 or so and I was shocked my arm broke so easy.
 
I opted to go for surgery. It was a tough choice, surgery or heal natural. Both have their pluses and minuses. It seems many on here opted for no surgery, I just hope I made the right decision. I am 36 years old and hugely passionate about lifting. Most people in my life seemed to think this was the route to go, surgery, especially if I was interested in continuing to be healthy and work out heavy like I am used to. I got a plate and 10 screws put in. There is no doubt the recovery period is quicker this way, but I just hope I can eventually get my full range of motion back. I am pretty limited with how far I can bend my elbow right now, I can’t even eat or fix my hair. Hopefully physical therapy will help with this. The surgery was only a week ago too so I shouldn’t be too impatient. I just hope I can get back to the gym soon. The doctor says it takes about 3 to 4 months for the bone to fully calcify. It is so hard to wait!

I wonder what the advantage is to either procedure, natural vs surgery on the long term outcomes in terms of strength, ROM?

I wish I knew all of that beforehand.  In the research I had done, there seems to be valid arguments for both methods.  I will find out soon enough if the plate was a good idea or not.  I certainly hope so.

While I am not really a body builder, I found this thread trying to find out why my arm still hurts so bad even though the break in my humerus is healing well.  I had a small fracture in my upper humerus on 4/8/08.  While my arm does not hurt where the fracture is, the lower part of my upper arm is still very bruised and hurts severely.  While it is improving, I still cannot lift my arm past my chest and cannot lift anything.  Is this normal?  What is hurting?  It feels like the muscle but why does that hurt so much from a small fracture at the top of my humerous?  Any help would be appreciated.

DC