Femur Fracture

[bkslsimmons]

I have a couple questions regarding my left femoral neck fracture and left comminuted femur shaft fracture. This occured after an automobile accident on March 24, 2011. (I am attaching xrays)

My first question is, is it normal for a comminuted femur shaft fracture to be left with bone fragments "floating" around nail.

My second question is, how long is the typical healing time of this type of fracture? It is now just over three months and I am still on a non-weight bearing status with quite a bit of pain in the middle of thigh and at the knee. We tried PT but the pain increased with each day so Orthopedic Doc pulled me from PT and ordered a bone stimulator. Just received stimulator yesterday and am to wear it 10 hours a day until I see him again in August.

I know all femur fractures are different for all patients but I am getting concerned about the pain and what may be causing it.

Thank you kindly,
Sandy

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[Bijingo]

Hi Sandy, I am not an expert orthopaedic physio, but, wow, you have done some really heavy damage to your poor leg. Your doctor is waiting to see some bone healing - those fragments that appear to be floating are hopefully stable - over time, new bone should start to fill in the gaps - the bone stimulator will hopefully help there. If the fragments were truly unstable, the doctor would have probably tried to fixate them better at the time of surgery. I am sure that it is going to be several more months before you are fully weightbearing on this leg - your doctor should be able to explain in detail where your leg is at with healing and the best course of action to help facilitate healing and also reduce pain in the meantime. Have you been allowed to get into a hydrotherapy pool yet? Even if you cannot do much physio or weightbear, you still want to be able to move your joints and use the muscles - this may be comfortable in a pool. Check with your doctor!! All the very best with your recovery.

[physiobob]

I tend to agree with 'Bijingo' (BTW hope you know what that means in some communities). You should remember that the bone is embedded within muscle. Think of a lamb chop, so your boney fragments are surrounded by muscle and so they aren't going anywhere other than slowly being reabsorbed into the body. You surgeon is suggesting that there is still non-union of the fracture sites hence the bone stimulator. Unfortunately normal bone needs weight bearing to get beyond a callous formation. So it's a little catch 22 in the beginning until we see more callous formation. Hopefully the bone stimulator will assist. Don't worry about the pain as such to much as you'd have that in any event at this stage.

Think about what you can get on with while non weight bearing on the rest of the body and especially the joints above and below the fracture sites. This is where a good physio should be able to provide sound advice.

[cody_carlson]

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this so i am sorry **hey so 5 years ago i broke my femur about 3 inches or so from the top and so they put in a titanium rod which for the last 5 years i have had no pain no limp up until 3 days ago when i fell from about 5 ft really hard on the broken leg and now i got wicked pain and a nasty limp ( i dont think i rebroke it) and i have tried tyenol anti inflamatorys and nothing seems to be working. Is it possible for the rod to shift? or any idea's? or idea's on how to convince the dr to take the Rod out? as the dr's here in B.C canada can be kinda dumb?