LAJ

Well tetonrider, here we are again.

I have loads of questions, but before I went there, I needed to get my head back on straight. I'm off the pain meds, I'm still on blood thinner, with values at a nice place now.

Here's my pics.... Surgery at around midnight on Sunday the 8th, as they felt it was key to get stuff back together. Driving around with what I thought was a muscle pull didn't help my cause, I'm certain.





Back to work on Monday, crutches work fine, and the staples were out yesterday.

Anything to help circulation, getting back on the bike, anything you have ready to copy/paste, I would be more than thankful. Thank you for your time.

tetonrider

LAJ--sorry i missed this. i will shoot you a PM in the next 24h. if i don't, please remind me. i'm definitely not a doctor but i have some information that might prove helpful in your healing. at least it will give you some ideas from which you can pick and choose.

better blood flow + increased ROM = faster healing, in my (all too vast) experience.

ovoleg

I just started riding yesterday, if I did a FTP test I would probably be around 60-70% of what I used to be. My FTP pre-injury was 295-300. I'm pretty sure I could knock out 230W for 20mins if I did it today(I dont plan to). I'll let you know in a few weeks but right now I have pretty intense vastus medialis and TFL pain. I am told, by the surgeon that he split/cut some of these muscles to get to the bone so it's normal for them to ache.

What I noticed that helps me with the stiffness is to keep the leg elevated, and to sleep on my back not my side. This has diminished my pain by about 60%.

Climbing out of the saddle is failboat right now. Heart rate spikes and pain ensues.

Ygduf

The road back is rough, but you're again on the road!

ovoleg

What actually broke/fractured? You have the exact same hardware that I have.

ovoleg

I never carried around a cane but what I did was walk really slow for about 3 days to focus on walking right. After that i started increasing speed naturally and now I walk without a limp.

tetonrider

most important thing is not to beat yourself up with the #s you see. sounds like you do have perspective.

you will probably see huge strides as you get back into things. in a (weird, admittedly) way, it's exciting t see big jumps in fitness.

did they actually cut muscle? there's some specific medical term for the difference between physically cutting a muscle vs slicing it a bit length-wise. i believe they generally do the latter for these surgeries. if so....yeah, that pain lasts for a long time. for me, i do just fine in certain planes (riding a bike in a road position--not TT--is a pretty limited motion), but other things take huge effort. for example, laying on the uninjured side and attempting to do a straight leg raise with the injured leg is the equivalent of a 1,500W sprint effort. it's improving with time.

i'd recommend thinking about your pedal stroke. i've noticed that the broken leg has gotten a bit slow. it is very evident with higher torque/low cadence--late start, late finish...robs me of some power. it's some muscular weakness/imbalance that just takes time to resolve.

sounds like you did the right thing with walking. if you do the same thing for your pedal stroke, and eventually for stuff like riding OOS, it could help minimize bad patterns.

mike12

Sounds like we are healing pretty similarly. Not everyone is going to be as quick of a healer as Teton

I've now got my FTP to about 80% of peak, but my max power is around 55%. That max number is going to take me a while to build back up. I think my injury was a week before yours.

My problem is that I still use a cane. The doctor talks about how he had to split the abductor muscles & says that he may have to go in after a year to take the nails out to help the abductors heal right. That would be a fairly easy surgery though. He says that since I'm so thin & relatively small boned that the nail head sticking out from the bone sometimes causes problems with the healing process of the abductors.

Just listen to your body on the out of saddle stuff. It was very hard/painful for me at first. Mainly pain through the knee. Amazingly after about a week of road riding, I started being able to stand a lot easier. I am able to pedal out of the saddle a lot easier when I'm in the drops.

shovelhd

One day at a time. If it makes you feel any better my injuries are still healing and my race fitness is in the toilet.

tetonrider

if either of you want some ideas (@shovelhd, @mike12) to ponder during your recovery, shoot me a PM. there's nothing special about me, but i pay attention to lots of small details during recovery and have discovered some things that work for me. you can pick & choose if any of them strike you.

ovoleg

Been a few weeks now with this side Quad/adductor/TFL pain but I've only been riding 3 days. THe pain is about the same as it was in the beginning. I'm hoping that after a few months it goes away cause right now its pretty high up there on the pain scale. I pretty much avoid standing. I did notice that after going at a steady pace for awhile, if I stand, that the pain is very minimal(almost zero). But if I'm coming from a stop, its a solid 8-9/10.

I asked my doc about the screws and he says they stay in, especially with what he saw in my x-rays. He says the only time he removes them is when people have issues a year after surgery and he says its rare. The healing process still sucks with the screws out, you pretty much ahve to be non-weight bearing again for 4-6 weeks. It's a tad quicker than the injury we had but still sucks!

LAJ

We should have the same stuff installed, I imagine. Femoral neck fracture, as well.

For what it's worth, listen to your Doctor first, then following a close second, listen to tetonrider. A wealth of great info, and I thank him for all he shared.

My Doctor visit is scheduled for the 22nd, and we shall see. I'm still on crutches, knee pain is there, but I can't say for sure if it's just there, or some damage. My bike was 20-30 feet away from me, so who knows what happened to the knee. They did x-rays, with no issues noted. My pain is very manageable, and cracking off some good speedy times on the crutches certainly gets my heart rate up. I concentrate on moving the leg as normally as I can, and I hope my transition to full weight is limp-free. My collarbone healed in record time, so I'm hoping for the same here.

I'm in a good mood, but I'm still pissed off, if that makes any sense. I think it's a healthy compromise.

I hope everyone does well in their various recoveries.

lokerola

ovloeg - I'm just a lurker here in the racing forums, but wanted to drop in and give you some encouragement. I was hit on my right side by an SUV that ran stop sign a few years back. Bumper was the first thing that made contact with my body. My right fib/tib were snapped in half, then smashed to bits. I also suffered spinal compression causing numbness on my left leg, bone bruise and AC shoulder injury on my right side, and various bumps,bruises, and road rash. After having a rod put in my leg (down the center of my leg - would have loved to see that drill bit), the leg didn't heal. Had to have the rod and screws removed, a bone graft done out of my upper femur, a new larger diameter rod inserted, and then a 6" plate and multiple screws put in the front of my leg. 3 more months before I could walk without crutches, then a few more months on a cane. It took about 9 months before I could walk again, unassisted. Oh, and I almost died of a blood clot in the hospital after the second surgery. But it passed and I live on to annoy my coworkers and family. I was told by the ortho I could have the rod, plate, and screws taken out if I wanted to - but NO way was I going through that crap again. I did have one screw taken out of my ankle that was backing itself out. I kept joking with people before the surgery that I was going to take a shot of Jack Daniels, grab a razor blade and my Dewalt cordless driver and take that sucker out myself. Ah, good times.

Anyway, I was training hard that summer and planning on losing a few more pounds before trying road racing. After the accident I just couldn't face the prospect of racing and possibly crashing. I think I've still got a bit of PSTD going on. I love to ride my bike now, and every now and then start to get the bug to race (I love to go fast and I'm competitive), but I start to relive the accident, the pain, the surgeries, the self-doubt, etc. My advice to you is to keep an eye on your mental state and don't hesitate to reach out to survivors of trauma (support groups, therapist, etc) if you're having issues. I visited a therapist for a while and it helped me get back on the bike (not to race, but at least to ride).

You will heal. It may take longer than you expect (or it may not, but don't rush it). Good luck and Godspeed.

ovoleg

Thanks for sharing guys. It's good to hear others have recovered from this injury.

Yesterday I went for a gentle 15 mi cruise and I had very little pain when standing on the pedals. I've been squeezing my glute throughout the day to help the body learn how to use it and I think its probably working.

My biggest worries right now are AVN and no other complications. Recovery is slow but it's coming along. I'm trying all I can to rehab and get it better. I'm going to assume the riding is helping.

I didn't lose a lot of power but I feel a bit of discomfort when I go closer to 200W and above, it tends to subside soon after too.

ovoleg

I dont know what happened or what I did but over the past few days the pain standing on the pedals is nearly completely gone. I went for a hike on Sunday, didn't ride mondya, went out for a decent stroll on Tuesday and it was like it was almost completely gone.

Today it was mostly gone too, just bugged me a tad when I had to grind the gears going up a climb. Still felt good when I went back down and headed home.

Hopefully the trend of feeling better continues! Oh and I'm only at 187 lbs(My race weight was 170-175) so I don't really need to lose all that much to get back into the swing of things. I want to recover from the injury before I worry about weight loss though.

revchuck 

Great news, ovoleg!

LAJ

Keep improving, ovoleg.

furiousferret

Physical activity gets the blood moving and speeds the healing process. The key thing is to not get too greedy and be patient.

LAJ

So. Who would have thought learning to walk would be so tough.

ovoleg

thanks!

Walking is easy after a few weeks, trust me. Keep at it man, it'll come along. Try walking slow like I did to make sure you don't walk with a limp, otherwise you'll introduce all sorts of pains!

So yesterday I rode a local climb I used to do every week 5-10x. I was aerobically MAXED out at 175-190 bpm, averaging 220W(I used to do 310W). The leg pain was subtle, basically my Quad aches and feels like it's getting worked pretty good. My left leg atrophied significantly.

When I got to the top of the climb I had to stop and hang out in the bushes for at least 5 mins to regain my senses. Aerobic capacity has gone to crap, only my mental capacity remains.

I'm just glad I eliminated the pain associated with standing out of the saddle. I typically don't climb 100% seated, I prefer to stand at least 20% of the time so I'm back to doing that. The only problem is when I stand my heart rate spikes and I feel like blowing up sooner now lol.

Creatre

One or two weeks of adding some endurance and you'll have a lot of that back. Just be patient and be glad your leg is working again! Sounds like good progress so far!

ovoleg

thanks! Yep I'm looking forward to it. It was easier to climb today than it was yesterday, HR was in the low 160's.

Aint gonna lie this injury recovery time is freaking super long.

shovelhd

It's going to be longer than you think. One day at a time. Count the blessing that you can ride again.

LAJ

I'm being very careful to walk as normal as possible. Introducing a limp into my life is the last thing I want to do. It's weird. If I just touch something, or have a crutch in my hand, I can walk fairly well. The minute I try and freestyle, all hell breaks loose. The mind is pretty powerful, and I'm seeing it here. It's only been a day and a half, so I'll give it more time.... My Dr. said I could play on the trainer, so half an hour each of the last two days, and I'm pretty happy.

Nicely done on the riding. You're recovery is far enough ahead of mine that I'm using you as a guide... Hope that's OK.

ovoleg

Sure thing, but keep in mind that everyone heals differently. I'm hoping my age can help me with something :/

Fitness is bad, but I'm glad to be riding like @shovelhd said.