Training & Nutrition - Tips for Healing a Fractured Arm?

Long story short, crashed the bike, fractured my radial sumpting or other a couple of days back.

I've been running to work (can't ride :( with the sore arm) and drinking lots o milk in hopes that will speed up the recovery process. Am I on the right track here? Any other tips?

Not being able to ride is killing me!

An easily absorbable form of calcium tablets, such as calcium citrate, will help speed up the recovery. Keeping the arm stable and still will also help it fuse back together quicker.

A controversial subject, but IMO milk is a very inferior form of calcium, let alone nutrition. One thing that it does is leaches vitamins out of your body, doing more harm than good. Good food sources of calcium are green leafy vegetables, nuts, and calcium fortified foods (preferably calcium citrate rather than calcium carbonate).

Sorry about the arm. I broke my tibia (shin) in December, and have recovered very quickly without drinking any milk or other dairy products. The hardest part about the recovery is keeping off the bike and letting it rest and heal!!

Milk is a great form of calcium. I would almost be willing to place a bet that you are a vegetarian. Also I do not belive milk leaches vitamins from the body and can find no independent studies that say it does.

Sorry to disagree.

Matt

Strangely enough, antiinflammatories can prevent healing.
Data suggest that there is a detrimental effect of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIAs) on fracture healing. Recent papers indicate that NSAIAs ****** bone formation in vitro[8] and one clinical paper has demonstrated a strong association between NSAIA use and nonunion of femoral shaft fracture.[9] Burd and colleagues[10] from the University of Missouri[provide more evidence that NSAIA use is independently associated with an increased risk of nonunion. They reported on a series of 112 patients with long bone and pelvic fractures that were treated with indomethacin for prophylaxis of heterotopic ossification after acetabular fracture surgery. Patients who received indomethacin had 26% more long bone nonunions, compared with 7% in those who did not receive indomethacin (P < .004). Multivariate statistical analysis demonstrated that other potential confounding factors, including age, smoking and/or alcohol history, Injury Severity Score, and presence of an open fracture did not independently affect the risk of long bone nonunion.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/444926

Use tylenol for pain control in the meantime. This was from the most recent 18th annual meeting for orthopedic trauma association.

Originally posted by MattC
Milk is a great form of calcium. I would almost be willing to place a bet that you are a vegetarian. Also I do not belive milk leaches vitamins from the body and can find no independent studies that say it does.

Sorry to disagree.

Matt

It's alright to disagree, Matt.
I disagree with the statemet "Milk is a great form of calcium.":)

And yes, I am a vegetarian. Is there anything wrong with that? I have done a lot of research on dairy issues, and what I have learned is a main reason why I choose not to consume any.

The reason milk IMO is an inferior form of calcium is that animal proteins produce a form of acid that when digested leeches vitamins out of your bones and body. It is no coincidence that the countries where people consume the most animal proteins have the highest occurrences of osteoperosis. I could go on and on, but I'll just include a link to an essay that I know of on hand. True, it is written by a doctor that promotes vegetarian diets, but it is all the same information I've read about from many different unbiased sources...
Milk - A Catch 22 (http://www.vegsource.com/attwood/milk.htm)

When I fractured my right arm last year i put just the left aero-bar on the bike put the bike on the stationary trainer and rode nowhere for a couple of months. The cast on the arm put it in the perfect position for the aero bars. At least I kept in reasonable shape on the trainer. The big problem is sweat under the cast -- it itches like mad.

If you do not have a trainer then you might try a spinning bike at the gym or something like that. Running with a cast (or sling) can mess with your balance, and you REALLY do not want to fall with a bad arm.

hi, sorry to hear about your break.:( i have had numerous ones, the most recent my rt. hand... the dr. in the hospital suggested liquid calcium as milk and my stomach don't seem to get along.
you can get the stuff in a health food store..i didn't see it in a gnc.. and you can up your intake of broccoli and sesame seeds.. both very high in calcium.
i rode with the cast on, very tricky and the first few days i felt like hurling.. but if it is a bigger cast than that i suggest what others have- spinning..or some cardio machine..like the eliptical.
the liquid calcium tasted good and i healed very fast.
good luck to you :)

Rest... don't do physical activities that are going to interfere with the recovery process, no matter how much you are tempted to! You could end up re-aggrevating the injury, and suddenly a few weeks could turn into a few months.

Good luck with that.

There is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian and sorry if I came across a bit harsh.

Originally posted by MattC
Milk is a great form of calcium. I would almost be willing to place a bet that you are a vegetarian. Also I do not belive milk leaches vitamins from the body and can find no independent studies that say it does.

Sorry to disagree.

Matt

I agree with Matt,

I have never seen any evidence that suggests that milk is a poor form of calcium. I have bad asthma and have had to take handfuls of corticosteroids just to keep it under control and stay alive in the past. These types of drugs (particularly Prednisone) can cause horrible side effects and even at 23 years old, I am having yearly bone density checks.

My lung specialist and physician continue to recommend milk on a daily basis to maintain my calcium but told me that I will probably die from Asthma before I am 30, long before I have to worry about Osteoperosis.

Anyway, I believe milk is supposed to give you some nutrients that you can't get from other sources and I have no intention of stopping from drinking it.
I do drink only skim milk though.

Justen

I think you broke your radius. Your arm has 3 major bones - the humerous of the upper arm and the radius and ulna of the lower arm.

Now the kind of break you had and where are important. I had a nasty double break at the proximal end of my ulna right in the joint. It was a very very bad break. It was like the bone had been sawed through twice leaving 2 lil pieces of dice sized bits a bone at the end. It was fixed by securing the break by screwing in a 4.5" screw and wrapping the bone in wire (got a really impressive scar). In my case, I still can't quite extend my elbow. Cyclists ride often with their arms locked out or nearly so, so that has been a drag. My elbow aches after awhile but it has slowly gotten less liable to this.

Nice thing about bones is they heal reasonably fast and the healing is very good. Bones are not weaker at previous breaks (actually a little stronger). As I recall, I walked and ran for exercise starting the second day after the operation. I was on the wind trainer in 3 weeks. And I was back on the road in 6 weeks (couldn't go too far at first) and bumps hurt. In 10 weeks I was able to do 50 miles. I was able to do a tough century within a year. It has been a bit longer then a year and there are still some problems but it isn't that big a deal. Nothing like a blown disc in the back or a bad knee. The problems are associated with the break being in the joint and all which limits a bit of the function. I hope you are luckier and have a break in a place where that won't be an issue. Most breaks heal reasonably fast and have virtually no long term ill effects.

Hi,
my understanding is that much of the calcium in milk gets used in protein metablosim; and becomes unavailable to bones.

Thanks for all the info!

Pat - radius, yeah that's whats broken. No surgery required, in fact no cast required either!

Update - it has now been a week, and it is feeling alot better. There is now no pain when I move it, but still some pain when there is a load on it. I've been back on the bike, although only to get to and from work and I have to watch out for bumps in the road as they can be painful. I have the utmost confidence I will be able to do next weeks xc race with no problems. I've been drinking a glass of milk (chocolate! YUM!!) every morning, taking 2 calcium pills daily and having a bit of frozen yogurt most nights (again, YUM!!!!).

:beer:

One of the major problems of milk is it is pasturized cooking out of it major nutrients and enzymes .In addition to what has been said a proper ratio of calcium to magnesium is needed for proper absorption of calcium which is lacking in milk.So I would either use alternative sources of calcium with better magnesiuum balance (greens/fruits/vegies/nuts)or use some of these same sources that are particularly high in magnesium in addition milk or supplement with magnesium.Proper ratio is approximately 2/1 cal/mag with at least 600mg./day of mag.
Justen as you note you have pretty severe asthma it appears this may be important for you as research is apparently showing effectiveness of intravenious magnesium in treating severe asthma.I have included a few links for you on this. http://www.asthmaworld.org/Mag.htm
http://www.mercola.com/2000/oct/29/magnesium_iv.htm

dude, if your arm is fractured, dont you think a cast would be the best option?

i fell of my bike also and fractured the same thing, they said it wasnt bad enough to cast so they said stay off the bike for @ least 6 weeks, i was like screw that so i babied it on my bike for a coulple of days
its been close to 3 weeks now and my arm is just about brand new now i just gota wait for my wrists to heal,lol, my advice take lots of pain killers and exercise your arm but dont strain it, it will be good as new in a bit
Nick