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Old 02-28-14, 10:13 AM
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grolby
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I broke my clavicle back in November and had a pin implanted to stabilize the bone (actually just had that removed this week). I didn't have a distal fracture, my break was at the other end, but if you're able to tolerate riding at only 5 weeks post-injury, that's really great progress. I could barely contemplate getting on my trainer at that stage, let alone riding outside - the pain was really still too much. I think you might find it hard to get rock-solid advice on what to expect, it seems, based on mine and other 33'ers' clavicle breaks, that the experience can vary a lot depending on the specific injury. For example, I seemed to have some really persistent pain and difficulty compared to others for a longer time after the crash and after the repair. That may have been due to the nature of my break (the bone was in 5 or 6 pieces, including a longitudinal split), or it may have been due to my diet, the phase of the moon, whatever.

I think the only thing I can advise with any injury is to err on the side of caution. If you push too hard and make it worse or delay the healing process, it'll be that much longer before you can return to your normal riding schedule. At 5 weeks or so, you're actually in probably the biggest danger zone, because you're still forming bone matrix in the injury site, but it probably hasn't started calcifying yet. It's really easy to disrupt that process through putting torque on the injury site, you can put tears in the collagen matrix and delay that calcification process. So I would be very cautious. But that's all I can really offer.
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