Clavicle Error - Broken Collarbone

I tend to agree. My doctor said the same. I eat a balanced and healthy diet anyway. However even if 90% of the extra calcium, vitamins and oils aren't needed at least you know your body has a good supply of everything it needs during the 'rebuild'

A lot of people are chronically short of calcium and other minerals.

Especially cyclists and women.

If you have enough for your needs then extra will do no harm, but a lot of people can benefit from more than is their everday diet. Stresses such as broken bones, strains of weight bearing, and micro fractures from impact sports can create a greater demand for bone building minerals than in a sedentary person. And when those demands are met, it can contribute to faster recovery and stronger bones.
Sweating causes mineral loss, cyclists sweat a fair bit.

Also, like I said, Calcium & magnesium combo works as an excellent natural pain killer. If you want it to work for migraines you can also combine it with B6.The transportation of nerve impulses in the body is also dependent on this mineral. Insufficent calcium can cause muscle cramping, poor quality/strength of muscle contraction and also irritability and nervous tension.

A sedentary person may not notice these things, but someone involved in a lot of physical activity would.

horatio broke his on an MTB at the weekend... That's 4 forumengers (if not more?) with broken collar bones in the last month... Heal up soon, Josh... You too, Estelle... x
can we add fruitbat to the list, heard from max he got knocked of his bike on the way back from hh yesterday and is in hospital.

:(

Get well soon, BattyTim!

Oh no! What happened?

advice on this would be great:

broken clavicle.
no private health insurance.
i would prefer to have surgery than wait for the break to heal.
what can i do?
can i "buy" the surgery?
how much would it be?

sorry but i dont know anything about how the health system works.

how bad is the break, unless its a decent break surgery isn't really necessary
surgery only holds the bones in place, you still have to wait for the pieces to knit back together
yes you can go private, but its expensive
the summary came through the other day for my surgery ( the bill goes through my private healthcare , they pay for it then send me a summary)
so far for the xray and surgery its at £1300 thats without the consultants bill for the first time he saw me, my 2 week checkup, and the following checkups to come

Damn, I'm bored of this sling. And the bone seems to be fusing but is pretty uncomfortable in an occasional shooting pain kind of way. Ho hum.

any excuse to get whacked out on prescription drugs josh...

heal up soon though people!

Sam man, how are you doing?! It's been bare time.

I walked past the rollerskaters in Hyde Park yesterday and thought of you! No badass black 'n' white spandex-clad superdude though...

Damn, I'm bored of this sling. And the bone seems to be fusing but is pretty uncomfortable in an occasional shooting pain kind of way. Ho hum.

Sam man, how are you doing?! It's been bare time.

I walked past the rollerskaters in Hyde Park yesterday and thought of you! No badass black 'n' white spandex-clad superdude though...

yeah man. it's been way too long. i'm doing pretty good (bike theft aside).

i've seen superdude once since then actually. he was attacking the streets somewhere central...

Oh no! What happened?
he got knocked off his bike on the way from hh yesterday :P

how bad is the break, unless its a decent break surgery isn't really necessary
surgery only holds the bones in place, you still have to wait for the pieces to knit back together
yes you can go private, but its expensive
the summary came through the other day for my surgery ( the bill goes through my private healthcare , they pay for it then send me a summary)
so far for the xray and surgery its at £1300 thats without the consultants bill for the first time he saw me, my 2 week checkup, and the following checkups to come

thanks for the info but the nhs are going to do it, its a bad break and needs surgery.

Went back for my one month check-up this avo, expecting to be told that it's nearly there, and was told that it's made very little progress and that if it's not looking better in another month they'll operate. The x-ray was a joke... the bone is just floating around. I'm feeling pretty miffed (furious) about the advice I've received up until today, which was entirely at odds with what the bloke today said. Another month with this cunting sling hanging round my neck just to be told I need an op? Let me.

...So the (touring) holiday I've been looking forward to for 18 months goes up in smoke.

Fuck, shit, cunt.

Shit news, dude. Hope it works out for you. Gutting about the tour (similar situation re: the world polo champs in Berlin next month). I'm really not thrilled with the "wait and see" attitude towards collarbones, but I'm sure they know what's best in the grand scheme of things.

I'm in next week for my "four week" (more like 6?) check up. I think I'm in a better position than you, though. I do believe it's started to fuse (I even rode my bike earlier this week, albeit, in a sit-up-and-beg position). However, I'm not really happy with the position it's fusing. There is a noticeable drop (rather than bump), which seems strange (usually, it seems, you get a bump where the two bits fuse, but the bone is overall, in-line as it would be were it not broken. This drops, and then continues towards my shoulder about 2cms further back), and my shoulder is still quite droopy (neither were issues when I broke it the first time).

Here's hoping it's healing fine, though.

My break is a week ago now and I've noticed my shoulder starting to sink downwards. Very worrying.
I am glad that I am having the surgery on Monday and not having to wait around, I dont like the idea of 'waiting and seeing' for weeks and *then *still having to go and get surgery done. This was why I was asking earlier on the thread about possibly going private. Having had my other collarbone broken before, and a plate fitted, I feel that this was definitely the best first option; and although surgery obviously has its risks, I would rather that if the tech is out there to get a better fix, then its used on me.

My consultant said that with the plate, things should start to move back into their original position. When I went for my x-ray the other day, the small section of the break was still a massive distance from where it had broken off, not much chance of it moving back to where it should be of its own accord, i.e. no fusion.

The discomfort seems to be worse than before, I think this is because my shoulder is moving out of line from where it was originally.

Especially cyclists and women.

Brilliant. What about the servants too? Might they benefit from your wisdom?

Black people and vegans also could. Fact.

Went back for my one month check-up this avo, expecting to be told that it's nearly there, and was told that it's made very little progress and that if it's not looking better in another month they'll operate. The x-ray was a joke... the bone is just floating around. I'm feeling pretty miffed (furious) about the advice I've received up until today, which was entirely at odds with what the bloke today said. Another month with this cunting sling hanging round my neck just to be told I need an op? Let me.

...So the (touring) holiday I've been looking forward to for 18 months goes up in smoke.

Fuck, shit, cunt.

Very sorry to hear this. If you are cool with getting an operation it may be worth requesting one asap (presumably on private healthcare), as at least then you will know exactly what your recovery time will be. If the bone is still floating around after 4 weeks it may not be able to bind at all.

The doc yesterday essentially told me I'd been fobbed off, and that it would've had to have been very best-case scenario for it to have been better in time for my trip at the beginning of August. He was a total ballbag who seemed to think it was my fault... "well, if you will go cycling in London...". Twat.

Later on last night I was chatting to Digger at LMNH, who said that in Europe they put such injuries in cast or pin them back together from the off. He and his Polish pal (who's broken both before) agreed that we're hopeless at dealing with collarbone injuries in this country. It's basically a case of 'wait-and-see'.

Furthermore, the doc said that if I fell on it with any force at all it would pop open, possibly through my skin. For the record, the fracture doctor and the specialist both assured me that it would never re-break it such circumstances but instead bent or splinter a bit (he compared it to a wet stick). Basically no one really knows what it'll do and no one is taking it seriously because it's not a spine or a tumour or whatever. Absolute cunts.

My (completely non-expert, only speaking from my own personal previous medical history and experience) advice: Get a plate ASAP. Dont wait. Go private if you have to.
If the ends of your broken bone pieces start to heal up and they're not together, will they be ever able to knit back together? I dont know much about bone fusion but presumably the bone tissue grows back around the end of a break if its not connected to the other bit?

Someone mentioned a figure of £1300 or so above. I earn £17k a year and money is tight but I'd still pay that much, in fact I'd consider that reasonable to get it done now, not to 'wait and see' and subsequently have pain in my collarbone for the rest of my life. Just dont drink or eat out or buy stupid shit for a year.

From my understanding the uk approach comes from what the us do which I would guess is partly informed by the litigation culture over there... Operations are the best way to
deal with it, until your operation goes wrong...

When I was in for my collar bone the guy next to me was in for the fourth time in as many weeks because his hip op got infected, basically each time he came in they had to cut another peice of gangrenous flesh off his leg and my nights were accompanied by the sound of the dripping from his open wound... It's rare, but still, ops are best avoided if posible.

A question then:

The doctor yesterday asked if I minded waiting for it to heal, to which my answer was yes and no. Yes, I can't be fucked to wait if it's not going to get any better and no, if that's the best option then I want to get it right.

Should I have surgery to have it pinned in place? I'm starting to think it's the best route.

I have little or no faith in it suddenly healing and I don't want to wait another month to be told I have to have it done anyway. And even if it does now heal it's a long way out of place. I was hoping it would sort itself out so that I'd avoid the (potentially aggravating) scarring that an operation would cause.

The doc yesterday essentially told me I'd been fobbed off, and that it would've had to have been very best-case scenario for it to have been better in time for my trip at the beginning of August. He was a total ballbag who seemed to think it was my fault... "well, if you will go cycling in London...". Twat.

Later on last night I was chatting to Digger at LMNH, who said that in Europe they put such injuries in cast or pin them back together from the off. He and his Polish pal (who's broken both before) agreed that we're hopeless at dealing with collarbone injuries in this country. It's basically a case of 'wait-and-see'.

Furthermore, the doc said that if I fell on it with any force at all it would pop open, possibly through my skin. For the record, the fracture doctor and the specialist both assured me that it would never re-break it such circumstances but instead bent or splinter a bit (he compared it to a wet stick). Basically no one really knows what it'll do and no one is taking it seriously because it's not a spine or a tumour or whatever. Absolute cunts.

That totally concurs with what I've been told / have discovered. Basically anywhere other than the UK they cut you open within a few days, plate you up and you're good to go in a month. To some extent the 'wait and see' approach is valid as, for example, in my case, healing was relatively swift for the type of break and I'd rather not be sliceed open. But what it creates is massive uncertainty for most patients (myself included).

And unless you see a sympathetic specialist most doctors couldn't care less about a mere collar bone break. I feel for you dude.

I also hate the number of people who take this as clear evidence that cycling in London is a stupid thing to do. Cock off the lot of you!

For fuck's sake.

My (completely non-expert, only speaking from my own personal previous medical history and experience) advice: Get a plate ASAP. Dont wait. Go private if you have to.

I'm told it can be put back together at any point.

I am insured privately for such an operation.

Buddha, what was your break like?

From my understanding the uk approach comes from what the us do which I would guess is partly informed by the litigation culture over there... Operations are the best way to deal with it, until your operation goes wrong...

I had to sign waiver forms in advance of my surgery.
Did I read them properly?
Of course not.

Yes I know there are risks - infection, anaesthetic going wromg, etc. But honestly I have faith in people, and I think the NHS is pretty good (esp. compared to the system in Ireland). There are risks involved in not having the surgery done - pemanent pain, arthritis, difficulty in performing work tasks and household chores etc, and most important of all, not being able to enjoy cycling from discomfort.

I'm told it can be put back together at any point.

I am insured privately for such an operation.

? So what's stopping you then?