Originally Posted by Richard D
Well it's coming up to three months since my accident and it's not been plain sailing (shortly after the cast came off I managed to pick up an infection in the elbow wound which took five weeks of antibiotics to clear up). I've started physio and the prognosis is 80% movement in the shoulder and a similar amount in the elbow - not too bad considering the damage. The surgeon doesn't want me to cycle outside for at least another two or three months (a slight knock could be problematic). The arms is still very weak anyway.
With being unable to get on the bike I've not been around here much - I didn't want to remind myself what I was missing.
This weekend though I've bitten the bullet and bought a trainer so whilst I might only see the spare bedrooms walls at least I'll be able to get my legs back up to strength ready for when I can get out.
Richard
I had a crash 2 years ago that broke my ulna in 2 places and that required a 4" inch wood screw to hold it together. My surgeon told me to go out and FORCE myself to do as much as I could as fast as I could after the initial recovery period which was about a month as I recall. I also had a broken shoulder blade and a broken collar bone and 2 broken ribs.
For my recovery, I was walking 2 days after the accident to keep myself in some kind of shape. Once the cast was off, I was on the wind trainer. The hard part with the trainer was getting on with an injured arm. Once on, I did not have much problem. After about 4 weeks on the trainer, I was out on the road. Riding on the road was a different story. My elbow got tired and sore pretty quickly and every little bump hurt. Things gradually got better. I was able to do a century after about 10 months. But it took about 18 months for each bump in the road to not hurt.
I did have physical therapy. But once they got me to the point where I could hoist a beer with my injured arm, they figured that was enough. So I continued working on it on my own to strengthen the arm. The physical therapy did teach me a bunch of exercises that worked on different areas of the arm and helped in different planes of motion so it was useful from that point of view.