Back in mid-July I took a header off my road bike and broke my left collarbone in three places. I went to my orthopedic surgeon who recommended I stabilize the fracture by wearing either a standard or figure-8 sling (I went with the latter). After 9 weeks there was no pain, only a little bump, and excellent range-of-motion so the doctor gave me permission to ditch the sling and resume "normal" activities (like bike riding) minus heavy lifting.

Here's the problem. I went in this morning for what I hoped would be my last x-ray (12+ weeks after the fact) and found out that I have what he referred to as a "fibrous union" (i..e, the body has stablized the bone fragments, but isn't laying down new calcium). At this point he recommened I start light upper body workouts to try and stimulate the body to build new bone.

We first discussed surgery, but since I'm in no pain, he didn't feel it was necessary at this point. We also discussed electrical stimulation, but his experience with it hasn't been terribly positive.

I plan on getting a second opinion, but wanted to hear if anyone else has a similar experience and/or thoughts.

P.S. The good news is that I am back on my road bike and was able to complete the recent Seagull Century ride....so riding in this condition doesn't seem to be a problem.

I broke my right collar bone in 1983 and after I got the sling off I used Nautilus Machines with very light weights and worked my way up. Although I still have some pain to this day when I'm on a long ride and breathing really hard or doing heavy lifting. PT is likley a good way to go but get the second opinion.

if the xray says no bone growth.. maybe something is wrong with diet? Drinking milk?

I'll admit I don't drink a lot of milk and have been eating less (trying to drop weight), but my wife has been feeding me a daily Calcium/Magnesium tablets.

by crikey

I fell this year mid-August. I fractured my right clavicle in two places and 8 ribs as well. The clavicle was displaced about an inch and there were also some bone fragment in there. I spoke with 3 orthopedic doctors and none of them recommended surgery. Apparently the clavicle is not that important of a bone, one of them said it's kind of like your appendix, you don't need it. They all said it is a very dangerous surgery and they rarely operate on them in the case of open wounds and problems with the nerve bundle that runs under the clavicle.

My ribs are about 99% now but still have a little pain in the clavicle. I'm not a dr but have been a nuclear medicine tech for over a decade now. I decided to do a bone scan on myself as they are much more sensitive at picking up bone problems. I did a bone scan at 2 weeks post and there was no metabolic activity in the clavicle (that means no active healing) but the one I just did at 7 weeks shows active healing. You could ask your doctor if he could refer you to a bone scan if you want to check. They usually just stick with xrays but bone scans are much more sensitive.

Matter of fact, the original xray only picked up one rib fracture. We found the rest on the bone scans. I will try to post the images so you can see when I get home later.

I would recommend increasing your calcium uptake, but in the end, if you wait long enough the clavicle will heal 99 times out of 100.

Here is a pic of the xray. The yellow arrows are pointing to the fractured ends of my right clavicle.


Here is a pic of the nuclear medicine bone scan. The areas that look like christmas tree lights are fractures. They get bright like that when the bone is actively repairing itself. Notice the right clavicle is not "hot" as we call it. 5 weeks later I repeated the study and the clavicle is now repairing itself. Hope this has been helpful to you.

Is your spine curved like that (laterally) naturally, or were you laying like that when the scan was done?

Just asking. I'm a service engineer for MRI. I scan myself all the time. It's pretty cool everytime I have back pain or something, I just throw myself in a scanner and scan away.

Just got my education on Nuc Med the other day. The new PET scanners are some pretty amazing technology.

Yeah, my spine is not entirely straight in the lumbar region, I've had a bad back since I was 20. I was actually sitting up with my back against the camera for that one.

PET is a good technology, particularly for staging certain types of cancer. The radiation levels are VERY high though. PET cameras work very differently compared to a regular nuclear gamma camera.