So, my cousin is supposed to be coming snow-boarding with us in four weeks time. But he broke his ankle on Sunday.
I don’t know how bad the break is, it’s in plaster and he’s having another x-ray in two weeks time. But he seems to think he might be okay to ‘risk it’ and go snowboarding.
Does this seem even vaguely plausible? The doc has said four weeks before the cast can come off and then I would imagine he could only put light pressure on it. He’s 25 so quite young and therefore should heal quicker than someone say in their 40s.
(This isn’t a thread about medical advice - the medical advice is a big fat ‘no’).
Is there anything he can do to speed his recovery? Sleeping in a oxygen tent?
No – not plausible. Even after the cast comes off, it’s going to take a few days or a week at least before his ankle really starts to return to normal.
I broke my ankle a few years ago and was in a cast for about six weeks. Two days after getting the cast off I walked about a quarter mile and it was a really, really bad idea. Admittedly I was 50 at the time – but even a 25-year-old isn’t going to be in shape for something as physically challenging as snow-boarding, where you need to not only be bearing your full weight but have good flexibility.
ETA: And there’s nothing to be done to speed the healing process. It’s bone. It has to reknit.
I broke my wrist about a year ago (non-complicated, maybe 4-5 weeks in a cast followed by time in a brace, they said it healed very quickly), so going by that experience, I suspect his orthopedist would freak out if he heard that. Right after you get the cast off is when they send you to physical therapy, which does not resemble high-intensity sports even though it feels like it at the time. When my cast came off and they asked me to bend my wrist forward, I physically could not flex it more than about 5 degrees due to the tendons/ligaments/etc being immobilized for that long, and had serious pain doing so. I was also told, even though the cast was off, that I was not allowed to do any serious lifting or pulling with that arm until I’d undergone more physical therapy and healing time.
I can’t imagine going through the ankle flexing required for snowboarding right after getting out of the cast. Even if the bone is super-duper strong and healed nicely, all those other elements in the leg haven’t been allowed any kind of range of motion.
My son broke his ankle in September. He was in a cast for four weeks. The cast came off a few days before his birthday. For his birthday I took him to Gameworks, one of those huge arcade/restaurants. He played a few rounds of DDR before we left and as we were walking to the car he was complaining about his ankle hurting. Long story short he cracked his ankle again playing DDR. Not bad enough to recast it but it needed to be wrapped up in an ace bandage for a couple of weeks.
We’re about the same age, and I’m coming off a knee injury, so I know exactly how he feels (I get to start hitting again in a month!).
He’s probably going to want to do it anyway; I’d suggest he gets a laced ankle brace, likethis one.
Since he’s only in the cast for 4 weeks, it doesn’t sound like that bad of a break. If he’s got a few days to get the strength and mobility back, it’s not at all unlikely.
If the medical advice is a “big fat ‘no’”, he’d probably better heed it. How would he stand insurance-wise if he re-broke it going against medical advice?
I had a nasty ankle injury back in March. Not a break; torn ligaments and a chipped bone. A full ten weeks later I was on holiday and still limping. I walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and later that night found myself sitting in my hotel going “Oh no… I really shouldn’t have done that.”
I can’t begin to imagine what something like snowboarding would have been like.