Scaphoid Fracture Treatment | Symptoms | Healing Time

Common Questions About the Scaphoid Fracture

What do you know about scaphoid fracture? This is just one on the numerous sorts of bone breaks that can be had when you have a mishap or fall. Like many other patients who have had fractures before, you would likely have many questions in your head too about what this type of fracture injury. A breakage can happen to any of the bones in your body hence the classification of these fractures is based on where the broken bone lies.

What are scaphoid and navicular bones?

These are two different names for the same kind of bone. The scaphoid bone refers to the entire wrist joint. Now, the navicular bone is more popularly used to refer to the bone that is found in the foot.

Who are the usual victims of this hand fracture?

Fractured scaphoid usually happens to adolescents and adults. Scaphoid wrist fracture is the most common type of scaphoid bone fracture. Men are more prone to fractured scaphoid than women. Even if the scaphoid bone is smaller than those bones found the forearms, the former is harder to break than the latter. Thus, you would not get a scaphoid wrist fracture unless the impact during your accident is so strong. Most of the victims of these types of scaphoid fracture are those who participate in sports hence athletes. Those who are fond of basketball, football, and motorcycle riding usually experience scaphoid waist fracture and other types of this bone breakage. Casualties of a car crash additionally typically get scaphoid crack wrist. Most likely, people would take a fall would have their hand or hands readily outstretched in order to break their fall. As a result, they would also extend their wrist joint which would usually get broken upon impact on the ground.

What is the difference of scaphoid bone fracture from the other types of fractures?

There are some characteristics that are unique to this type of scaphoid injury. Sometimes, this will just be taken as any normal sprain instead of being a fracture. This is because the scaphoid fracture symptoms are almost similar to those of the sprain. You will experience a little swelling and some pain as well. In most cases, the swelling would eventually die down in a few days. Unlike buckle fracture or any other types of fracture on your hand, forearm or fingers, there are no visible deformities that you will observe on your wrist or waist, whichever part is affected. Impacted fracture also shows some deformities in the part of the fractured bone. Without showing any signs of breakage and some other fracture symptoms, you might say that you would not even need to treat scaphoid fracture. However, a fracture diagnosis conducted by a medical facility would show the particular part of your wrist that is broken. Thus, it is sensible to delay the diagnostic procedures weeks after you have a fractured scaphoid bone. However, you should not delay the diagnosis for so long so that you would know if you will need fracture surgery or not.

How do you detect breakage symptoms?

You would know that your wrist is broken once you will have an x-ray. This will definitely tell you if you will need scaphoid fracture surgery. Some milder cases would only make use of scaphoid fracture splint. At first, the fracture would not be immediately visible but it will begin to show itself on the x-ray weeks or months after the accident. Sometimes, a bone scan is necessary to detect if there is really a fracture. This will only be done three days after you injured your wrist.

What should I expect if the scaphoid fracture treatment fails?

If healing does not really seem possible or it is really delayed, you might experience traumatic arthritis. At first, it would seem like you are already on the way to a scaphoid fracture treatment until the broken pieces of your bone starts to deteriorate. When you have the previously mentioned type of arthritis, you would experience stiffness and pain. Your wrist fracture would not be as strong as before hence you would not be able to hold things in the tight way that you were used to. The arthritis would heal eventually but it would take time, depending on how your accident has damaged your wrist.

What are the tendon wounds engaged with a messed up scaphoid?

It is not only the bone in the wrist joint that is broken during scaphoid fractures. The ligaments surrounding this area would also be affected. When the ligaments are already affected, the fracture healing time would take longer than necessary. You would require more recuperation time with the goal that you can reestablish your wrist to its great working condition. A surgery might be necessary for a severe case of broken scaphoid bones. If this fails still, your wrist bones would start deteriorating and your wrist joint is in for permanent stiffness.

What medications or arrangements are expected to recuperate the crack?

You would certainly ask about how to heal this type of bone breakage. It can already give you a lot of discomfort if you will simply endure your injury for long. Your scaphoid fracture rehabilitation would be based on the type of fracture to handle, affected ligaments, and the level of ligament damage, if any. The rehabilitation also needs to consider the location of the broken bone. Some bones heal faster than others.

When is the fracture cast needed?

Cast treatment is ideal for incomplete wrist injuries or those that do not tear across the bone. A nondisplaced scaphoid fracture only needs 28 days at most for rehab. Complete fractures that are already displaced would take more than 28 days to heal in a cast or brace or may not heal at all. A waist fracture that is not displaced would need three months to heal if put in cast, that is, on average. Long arm cast rehab that includes the fingers would need up to six weeks to recover. There is also the thumb spica cast that you can use. Cast treatment also works for other types of fracture such as impacted fracture. However, compression fracture brought about by osteoporosis in aging people might be quite hard to recover from. There is no bone growth that is expected to happen in older people’s bones.

When is the cast ineffective?

There are certain fractures that can no longer be healed by using the cast. Instead, to avoid fracture complications, an operation should be in order. The surgery would help stabilize the broken bone with a fixation device. Without stability, no healing would take place.

When can I use my rehabilitated bones after surgery?

After the surgery and after taking the scaphoid fracture emedicine, you need to check if the bones have already recovered completely. Even if you have used the screw on your broken bones, this does not represent complete healing. The screw only serves as an alternative to a cast.  Usually, you can go back to playing sports or doing heavy work after eight weeks. If you have chosen bone grafting and nonunion, you need to wait for three months or more when the blood flow to the healing bones is poor. Poor blood flow would only lengthen activity restriction.

How long is the hospital stay during a scaphoid surgery?

Fracture of wrist or a broken scaphoid would need medicines to heal. Surgery would usually allow you to go home within the same day or spend at least one night in the hospital. A surgery on the pelvis would require you to spend a night in the hospital. You would likely be on pain medication after the surgery. You can buy emedicine instead for your convenience because this can be accessed online. Other patients would opt on naturally treating their fracture. If you are curious as to how to treat scaphoid fracture quick, you can try both natural and medical treatments. There are many free resources about how to shorten scaphoid fracture recovery time.