I just did a second opinion consultation with a runner who called and said she was diagnosed with a grade five stress fracture.
The doctor didn’t actually explain what that meant. He just said it was serious.
Stress fracture are rates by severity with grade one through a grade five. Grade five is obviously the worst to runner.
She wanted to know if she needed a bone stimulator since her stress fracture was serious.
Do I need a bone stimulator for a grade five stress fracture? That’s what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run podcast.
A runner and a listener to the podcast recently sent in a question regarding how long it takes to heal an old fracture versus a new fracture.
There are many risk factors for developing problems with healing a broken bone.
Each year there are about six million broken bones the United States. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of all of those fractures do not heal as quickly as we would hope and turn into what is called a fracture non-union or a delayed union.
A “fracture non-union” is just what it sounds like. It means to the fractured pieces of bone did not unite. They did not get back together and the fracture just did not heal.
A “delayed union” is a broken bone that isn’t healing as quickly as we would expect.
Today on the Doc On Run Podcast we’re talking about the difference in healing time of an “old fracture” vs a “recent fracture.”
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I just got off a call with a runner who broke his little toe and he is trying to get back to running.
Pain when running is one signal that you are disrupting the healing process.
His main question was if he could run without pain, is it okay to run on the broken toe before it is fully healed?
He is concerned that if he runs and the broken toe doesn’t heal, that would obviously lead to problems and he doesn’t want to have a non-healed broken toe.
Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast we’re talking about what happens if you run and your broken toe does not heal.
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